Black Terrace
by The Mangosity
Summary: 雲は消えて、誰も彼がどこに行っているか知りませんでした。 テラス 台地 それらの唯一のリードがブラックの名前です。 光はそれを生きるように保つことを望みます、しかし、暗さは抹消されることを望んでいます。 第一に伝説的なブラックテラス 台地 に着くことができるのは見る時に対する競争です。Cloud’s disappeared and nobody knows where he’s gone... Full summary translation in chapter five.
1. I Accidents And Repair

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Kingdom Hearts. I do, however, own the plot of Black Terrace.

Oh, and for future reference, if you see this line it means that the scene has changed:

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If you see this line it means the point of view has changed:

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Three things before you read the story. One, for those of you who read Deep Dreams, my other story, be aware that all will become clear soon, and longer! Much longer. Two, for Dookaller, be aware that the other story that I talked about _is _still on. Three, for Meeee! If you are reading this and have figured out that I am directing this comment to you, Hi! How ya' doin'? Now, all comments aside, enjoy a little something I like to call Black Terrace, and hey! What do you know? If you stay logged in long enough after the story, you'll be able to here a feeble, if not pathetic, plea of mine. 

Black Terrace

_I. _**Accidents and Repair **

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_I didn't mean to break it. Really, I didn't. It's not my fault Donald didn't teach me how to control my magic. –Riku _

_Oh, it was only an accident. We just need to practice our magic more. –Kairi_

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Donald drove while Goofy navigated, and Riku and Kairi were down in the body of the ship looking at everything that was down there. Sora had nothing to do, so he sat in his chair and watched as star after star silently passed outside of his window. They were going to Radiant Garden formerly known as Hollow Bastion. Leon, Yuffie, Aerith, and Cid had contacted them through the computer on their Gummi Ship and told them to come there immediately. 

"I wonder what they want?" Sora thought as a strange noise came from bellow him. The little sliding door that led downstairs opened up and Riku, followed by Kairi, walked up the little stairway. They looked guilty which led Sora to say, "What did you do?"

"N…nothing," Kairi said.

"Unless breaking this is something," Riku said, holding up the oddly shaped part he was carrying. Sora dully turned his head to look at the large part, and then shot out of his seat to inspect it.

"This had better not be what I think it is," Sora said, "Goofy, isn't this that part you said to never break? _Ever?_" He said the last word while gripping Riku's arm, which meant he was going to just _kill _Riku if Goofy said yes. Goofy turned around, and when he saw the part that was in Riku's hands, he practically fell over.

"That's the engine's battery," he cried, "How did you get it up here?"

Sora didn't even have time to yell at Riku since Donald called over, "Uh, we've got a problem." Everyone, except Riku who was trying to keep from dropping the battery, ran over to where Donald was to see what was wrong. "We're loosing power, and I don't think we'll be able to stay in the air much longer." The ship suddenly gave a lurch forward and started to teeter to the left and to the right.

"What's happening?" cried Kairi who was clutching Donald's seat to keep from falling over.

"The ship's engine is failing," Donald said. He was trying to keep the ship in a strait line, but wasn't having much success.

"Radiant Garden is right there," Goofy said, pointing in front of them. The world could barely be seen now since the ship was shaking so much that nothing could be made out through the windshield. The ship gave one more lurch before sailing downward.

"Hold on," Donald cried as he maneuvered the ship so that it would land on Radiant Garden. Before the ship crashed, everyone was holding on to a chair, the wall, or, in Donald's case, the steering wheel, as hard as they could. As the ship made contact with the land, there was a screeching noise that made everyone cringe. The glass of the cockpit broke with the ferocity of a thousand wails as it hit up against the wall of the valley.

As smoke quickly spiraled up from the nose of the ship, Sora brought his head up from where he had fallen. Coughing because of the smoke, he looked around and saw that the ship had taken major damage. Many red panels were hanging off of it and glass was scattered all around. As he moved closer to the wreckage, Sora spotted Riku and Kairi also staring in awe.

"Riku, Kairi," Sora shouted running over to them, "How do you break an _engine_?"

"Well," said Kairi, "We noticed that the engine's heat gauge was getting a little hot."

"Yeah, and Kairi suggested that I practice my magic by casting Blizzard on it," said Riku, "And when I tried, I accidentally cast Thunder."

"Then I tried to cool it by casting my own Blizzard spell, and I accidentally cast Fire," Kairi said, "That made the battery break off from the engine."

"Okay then, answer me this," Sora said, "Where is the battery now?"

"Right here," Goofy said, walking from behind the ship and holding up the tattered looking piece of machinery.

Donald followed behind him and said, "The ship won't work unless we replace the engine. I bet Cid could help us with that."

"Yeah," said Goofy, "How far are we from town?"

Sora looked around and said, "We're in The Great Maw. That's not too far."

"Hey, are you guys alright?" Yuffie's voice could be heard coming from the Crystal Fissure.

"Yeah, we're okay," Riku called over to her.

Yuffie ran over and said, "When we heard the crash, the other's sent me over here to see what was going on." She laughed, "Wait till I tell them it was you guys." Sora, Donald, Goofy, Riku, and Kairi started following Yuffie back to the populated part of Radiant Garden and asked her why the members of the committee had called them there.

"Sorry, can't tell you," Yuffie said in a taunting voice.

"Why not?" Donald asked.

"The other's wanted to tell you personally." They were just now getting to the Marketplace so the others decided to wait until they got to the Borough to hear why they'd been called.

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Yuffie rapped on the door a few times and opened it, "Look who I ran into," she said, beckoning Sora and the others into the house.

"Good, you're here," said Leon once he'd spotted them.

"So, what was it you wanted to talk to us about?" said Sora as they all tried to squeeze into the somewhat small space that felt kind of cramped with this many people in it.

"It's Cloud," Aerith said once everyone had gotten situated, "He's left again."

"But he leaves all of the time," said Sora.

"Not like this," said Aerith, "He didn't even tell us he was leaving."

"Do you know where he might've gone?" asked Goofy.

Now Leon said, "We're not so sure, but we think he might have gone to a place called Black Terrace."

"What's Black Terrace?" asked Sora.

"That's the problem," said Aerith, "We don't exactly know what or where it is."

"Wait, if you don't know what it is, how do you know that's where he went?" Riku said.

"Ansem's computer showed us that someone had been looking at files about Black Terrace," said Cid, "Access was denied when we tried to look at them."

"What do you want _us_ to do?" asked Sora.

"Please, find out where he is," Aerith said, "I think Sephiroth is after him again."

"That's why we want you to find him and get him out of trouble," said Leon.

When no one said anything, Kairi said, "Hey, we can do this. All we have to do is gather information. Someone's bound to know what Black Terrace is."

Where do we start?" asked Riku.

"Let's start at Traverse Town," said Sora, "There are people from all over the worlds there."

"Great, we can go right after Cid fixes the sip," said Donald.

"I have to fix the ship?" Cid said, "Wait a minute, that crash wasn't you, was it?" Everyone nodded their heads yes. "Well, take me to it and I'll see what I can do." When Cid saw the ship, he was lost for words. "What did you do, crash it into a meteor?"

"Hey I only did that once," Sora said, "We just crashed here and now the engine needs to be fixed."

"You think the engine needs to be fixed?" Cid asked, "I'd be better off giving you a new ship than fixing this heap of metal."

"Really?" asked Kairi.

"I can't fix this," said Cid, pointing to one of the hanging panels.

"Anything that works I guess," said Goofy. In about twenty minutes Cid had the new ship ready to go and Sora, Donald, Goofy, Riku and Kairi were on their way to Traverse Town. On the trip over, Sora, Riku, and Kairi had decided go down to one of the rooms in the ship that had computers in it to see if _they_ knew anything. Right now, Sora was looking at a list of some worlds that they hadn't been to before, and to his disappointment, he hadn't been able to find any world called Black Terrace.

After a while he asked, "What do you think Black Terrace is?"

"Hm," said Riku, "Aren't terraces those flat pieces of land that people carved into mountains when they couldn't plant on the ground?" Sora and Kairi looked at him with confused looks on their faces. "Oh, you'll learn about them in 10th grade."

"Knowing that still doesn't help us know what Black Terrace is," said Kairi, "Did _you_ find anything Sora?"

"Well," said Sora, "There are a lot of worlds with the word terrace in it." He beckoned Riku and Kairi to come look at the computer screen. On it were a list of worlds that, like Sora had said, had the word terrace in them. There was Terrace of the Prairie, Aurora Terrace, Terraces of Light, Ancient Terrace, and even Red Terrace, but of all the terrace worlds, not one of them had the name of Black Terrace.

"Well, at least we'll be going to Traverse Town," said Riku, "The people there'll probably know about Black Terrace."

As he said this, Donald's voice came over the intercom saying, "Sora, Riku, Kairi, we're about to land." As they made there way out of the computer room, Riku's elbow accidentally bumped up against the computer's keyboard. Looking to see what he'd done, Riku noticed that the words, "LOADING FILE," had appeared on the screen. There was a bar underneath the letters showing how much data had been loaded and since it wasn't going very fast, he decided to just leave it alone until they got back from Traverse Town.

"You guys go on ahead," Donald said once they'd come up, "Goofy and I will stay here and make sure the ship doesn't have anything wrong with it." This having been said, Sora Riku and Kairi stepped out of the new blue and purple ship, through the big wooden doors, and onto the coble stones of Traverse Town. They asked about Black Terrace all over town, but each time they asked they got a negative response. No one in all of Traverse Town knew anything about a place called Black Terrace.

"Am I the only one who's starting to think Black Terrace doesn't even exist?" said Riku as they leaned on the little wall that looked over the 3rd district.

"But it has to exist," said Sora, "Ansem's computer said it did."

"It didn't exactly say that," said Kairi, "It just said that someone was looking at files about it. That doesn't mean the files were telling the truth." As the three shirked around in the 3rd district, wondering about the reality of Black Terrace, a figure was wandering around the 2nd district.

"The Key Blade Masters will soon fall," it said, "I will make sure of that."

**To Be Continued...(In case any of you actually cared enough to notice, I forgot to put one of these in the 2nd chapter of Deep Dreams, and I forgot to put a The End in the 3rd. Just thought I'd let you know.)**

Okay! Hope you liked the story, now for that plea of mine. Please! Please! Please! Somebody tell me how to make links in my profile! I've been trying, and trying, from copying and pasting a link, from going to Google and putting, "Links," in the search bar. Could anybody help me out? Come on! I'm _dying _here! This is The Mangosity saying **do not **eat the food on airplanes, trains, and other public transit vehicles. Don't you know it's bad for you?

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	2. II I'm Going To Make You Scream

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Kingdom Hearts, but Demeatrix is ©™® _mine_.

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Hi again! Just wanted to get this second chapter up before I go on Vacation. Just so you know, I expect this story to be longer than I usually make them, maybe about eight or ten chapters. Just wanted to let you know. So here you are. I give you, the second chapter of Black Terrace.

Black Terrace

_II._ **I'm Going To Make You Scream**

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_It's weird how something can be so hard to find when it's right there under your nose. –Sora _

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"Are you sure you don't want me to come with you?" said Riku as Sora climbed the stairs to the 2nd district.

"Oh come on, I'm just going to go stock up on a few items in the 1st district," said Sora in an exasperated tone, and he had a reason to be exasperated. This was about the fourth time that Riku had asked him this question, "Why are you so worried?" Sora had noticed that their items were running low and offered to go to the 1st district item shop to restock, with much objection from Riku.

"Well if you're attacked by too many heartless in the 2nd district, Kairi and I won't be there to bail you out."

"Tell you what, if there gets to be too many heartless, I'll come back here and get you're and Kairi's help."

Riku thought for a second, "Fine then, but be careful."

"Okay," Sora said, "Come on cheer up Riku. Think of this as your, 'quality time,' with Kairi."

"Sora, that's not funny," Riku cried out as Sora turned the corner in laughter. Happy to have Riku off of his back, Sora opened the giant wooden doors to the 2nd district. Sora was about to walk up the stairs that were to his left when he heard a voice.

"Where are they?" the insipid voice said. Sora twirled around to see a man dressed in a navy blue coat with a beige shirt and white pants. He bore a striking resemblance to Demyx but his hair was longer.

"What are you talking about?" Sora said, knowing that this man was probably bad news. He then noticed the likeness he shared with Demyx, "Wait, you look like Demyx, but you're not him. Who are you?"

"If you have to know, I'm the nobody of the brother of the human form of Demyx. Demeatrix is my name. Now are you going to tell me where they are or not?"

Sora was still thinking about what Demeatrix had just said, but then said, "Who are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about the other key bearers," Demeatrix said, his patience growing thin.

"If you actually think I'm going to tell you, then the answer is no," said Sora.

"Then you give me no other option," said Demeatrix, "Tell me where they are or I'm going to make you scream."

At this Sora drew out the Key Blade, "I'm not telling you anything."

Demeatrix smirked, "This is going to be quick," he said. He too drew out a weapon. It was a long rod that looked like it had a white tip of the Key Blade Oblivion at each end. Rows of gears surrounded it except in the middle where he held it. Before Sora could even react, Demeatrix shot over to him and punched him in the stomach. He went sailing all the way to the front of the fountain that was behind him.

He hoisted himself up, sputtering and coughing. Demeatrix was stronger than Sora thought. Demeatrix walked over to him, "Had enough?" he asked.

"You wish," Sora wheezed. Demeatrix struck Sora across the face causing him to fall to the ground again.

He raised his rod into the air and simply said, "Thunder." Black lightning surrounded Sora as an excruciating pain came over him. He didn't want to scream, and he tried not to. He even put his hand over his own mouth to keep the sound from coming out, but it was too much for him. He let out a scream so loud that some people in the 1st district wondered what was happening. Finally the lightning around him went away and he tumbled to the hard ground.

"Damn it, why'd I have to scream?" Sora hissed, pounding the floor with his fist. He surprised himself with this since he rarely ever cursed. That was Riku's job.

"Don't worry," came the cold voice of Demeatrix, "It'll all be over soon." Sora closed his eyes, waiting for the impact. Right as Demeatrix was going to strike down with the sharp edge of his staff, there came a loud clang and a flash of sparks in front of him. When he opened his eyes, Sora say that a Key Blade covered in flowers was lodged in the floral design that adorned the fountain, blocking Demeatrix's rod from moving any further.

Looking up, Sora saw a girl in a pink dress with an angry look on her face, "Kairi," he said with relief in his voice.

"If you're going to pick a fight you really should make it fair," Kairi said, directing her comment to Demeatrix and summoning her Key Blade back to her hand.

"A key bearer I presume?" Demeatrix said turning his attention to Kairi.

"What about it?" said Kairi, her stall working perfectly. This gave Riku the chance to run over to Sora from his hiding place. Through a few seconds of silent planning, they were both able to simultaneously attack Demeatrix from behind, though it wasn't enough to subdue him. With a wave of his staff, Demeatrix sent a force so strong toward Sora and Riku that they were sent tumbling toward the alleyway that led to the 3rd district. Kairi's head, shot around as a light barrier covered all of the exits that led out of the 2nd district.

"Kairi, no," Sora cried.

"Hah, you think I'm stupid?" said Demeatrix, "I'll finish you off and then I'll go for the other two." He looked over to where Sora and Riku stood behind the barrier, powerless to help Kairi who was in the ring with an opponent way stronger than she was.

"Why'd you have to go alone Sora?" Riku said. He and Kairi had heard Sora's screams and rushed over to help him. They got there just in time to see Sora falling from the dark thunder attack and had had to make a quick plan. Kairi was supposed to distract Demeatrix in some way, and Riku was supposed to get to Sora and double team him, but Demeatrix had figured them out. Now Kairi was in deep water. She didn't stand a chance against Demeatrix.

Now Kairi eyed Demeatrix, and looked for some flaw, any weakness in his stance, but she found none. "Think Kairi, think," she thought, trying to force her mind to think of a way out of this. Since Kairi hadn't had any experience with battling the heartless, Riku and Sora had been training her so that she could level up. Donald had also helped her by teaching her three basic spells: Fire, Blizzard, and Thunder. She had been trying to master Cure but with little achievement. The most she had accomplished with that one was replenishing one HP, and making Sora and Riku laugh until they cried every time they thought about it.

"Okay, you're terrible at fighting, and you can barely even conjure up the easiest of spells," Kairi concluded, "Your forte definitely isn't brawn at the moment, so that leaves one other option. Brain." It all came together in Kairi's mind. She'd dodge every attack that she could, making sure to Cure when she could, even though it wasn't much. Hey, who knew? Maybe she'd actually end up wining. All of these thoughts came to Kairi in one thought since she only had a few seconds to get out of the way of Demeatrix's charge.

"I'm going to destroy you, and then I'm going to break that Key Blade of yours in half," Demeatrix snarled.

"**Blizzard**," cried Kairi sending a cascade of blue ice at Demeatrix's feet. This was her best spell and knowing from past experiences and an angry Riku, the ice was going to hold for a few minutes.

She scrambled over to where Sora and Riku stood in the barrier, "What am I going to do?" she cried, obviously panicked.

"Look, just get a hit in at every chance you get," said Riku.

"Yeah," Sora said, "Bit by bit you'll bring him down,"

"I'm not sure I can do that," said Kairi, "But I'll try." Then came the splintering sound of ice cracking. She spun around to see that Demeatrix was breaking the ice faster than she'd expected. As Kairi slowly went back over to Demeatrix, Riku and Sora knew that this wasn't going to be an easy fight for Demeatrix. Kairi might not have been a very good fighter, but they had a feeling that she wasn't going to go down so easily.

"You're becoming more of a nuisance than I thought," said Demeatrix breaking the last of the ice, "This should have been done a long time ago."

"**Fire**," Kairi cried. Fire came out of the tip of her Key Blade and it barely singed him. "This is bad," she thought. Then she cried, "Why do you want to destroy us so badly?"

"Because," Demeatrix said, "You're key bearers."

"And what's so bad about that?"

"I guess I could tell you. You're about to die anyway, so it doesn't matter," said Demeatrix, wearing that wry smile of his, "Since you three wield Key Blades, you also wield the power to open and close any lock at will. If you three were to stay alive, it would interfere with the opening of Black Terrace."

"Black Terrace." It was so surprising that this malicious person actually knew about Black Terrace that all three key bearers whispered it's name.

"Black Terrace is…" Demeatrix began, but he never got to finish his sentence. With a loud bang, Demeatrix was sent sailing toward the West wall.

"You fool, you'll ruin everything." It was Sephiroth. "I need Black Terrace to be _closed_."

Getting to his feet and advancing on Sephiroth, Demeatrix said, "Don't you know that if we open it, we'll be able to rule _everything_?"

"I have no interest in that and you know it," said Sephiroth, "I'm only interested in sealing Black Terrace, and if you kill them Black Terrace will never be sealed." As Demeatrix and Sephiroth went on arguing this way, Demeatrix's concentration on the light barrier started slipping away bit by bit. Soon, Sora and Riku were able to just walk right up to Kairi.

"What are they taking about?" she asked, watching the pair in front of her who were practically at the point of clashing weapons.

"I don't know," said Sora, "But they know about Black Terrace."

"Sora, Kairi," said Riku who was standing at the entrance to the 3rd district. He motioned with his arm for them to come on. Balking away slowly, Sora and Kairi were able to get away to the 3rd district.

As Demeatrix and Sephiroth kept arguing, Demeatrix turned around and noticed the fact that Sora, Riku, and Kairi had left, "You let them get away," he said angrily, turning to face Sephiroth.

Sephiroth just smirked, "Good," he said, and then, within the blink of an eye, he disappeared. Demeatrix growled and balked into the portal of darkness that had appeared behind him. In the 3rd district, Sora, Riku, and Kairi were talking about how Sephiroth and Demeatrix knew about Black Terrace.

"How do they know about Black Terrace?" asked Sora, looking as dumbfounded as the others.

"It doesn't matter that they know what it is," said Riku, "It matters that _we _still _don't_ know what it is."

"Well, it's obvious that nobody here doesn't know about it," said Kairi, "Sora, why don't you just go get the items we need and meet us back at the ship. We're going to have to make a new plan."

"Yes, and _please_ use the shortcut this time," said Riku, pointing at the door that led directly to the 1st district from the 3rd.

"Oh yeah," said Sora, smiling sheepishly, "I forgot about the shortcut." After Sora got the items that the party needed at the item shop, he hurried over to the outer world where the ship was. He pushed the button that was on the side, felt himself being teleported inside of the ship, and started walking along the hallway that led to the main cockpit. On the way though, he thought he heard a small beeping noise. He would've ignored it, but then he heard it again. Looking to find where it had come from, he found that it was coming from the computer room.

"Hey, we left the computer on," Sora said as he sat down in the chair in front of the computer to shut it down. One look at the screen, though, made him stop completely. His eyes lit up like two little Christmas trees, and a smile so big that it hurt plastered itself onto Sora's face. Right now, Riku and Kairi were telling Donald and Goofy about Demeatrix and Sephiroth, but when Sora burst into the room everyone stopped talking and jumped.

"Riku, Kairi, Donald, Goofy," Sora cried, waving a few pieces of paper around in the air, "Black Terrace is…" and that's when they lost him. Sora was talking so fast that no one in the room had any idea what he was saying.

"Sora," said Riku, poking the top of Sora's forehead to make him stop talking, "I warned you about eating sugar."

"I didn't eat any sugar," said Sora, "I just found out that Black Terrace is…Oh forget it." He held out the papers he'd been holding, "Here, read this. If I start talking I'll probably just end up confusing you again." Donald, Goofy, and Kairi crowded around Riku as he held the paper up to his eyes and started reading.

_File Loaded_

**Saelius**

**The Northern Island: Callgeera **

**The Southern Island: Lumarium **

**The Western Island: Pymmarra **

**The Eastern Island: Quarius **

**The four islands of Saelius are known for the reverence their people give Black Terrace. Located in a very distant and remotely unknown part of the galaxy, few people know of these island worlds, and even fewer people know what Black Terrace is. The only people who truly know of it are the people who live on the one island where Black Terrace actually resides. Just which island this is,** **is not known. **

The rest of the pages just had the description and _location _of each island.

"Oh," Riku, whispered in surprise after he was done reading the first page, "Sora, where did you get this?"

"It was just on the computer when I went in," Sora said.

That's when Riku realized what he'd done, "I wondered why it said File Loaded in the corner," he thought, eyeing the two words. He thought back to when they had left the computer room to go to Traverse Town and he had bumped the computer. It had started loading a file, so this must have been it. Not wanting to ruin the pride Sora probably felt right now, Riku said, "So, what are we waiting for?" He handed the papers to Donald and Goofy, "You two can figure out these coordinates, can't you?"

"Of course we can," Donald said, looking at all of the worlds, "And it looks like the Pymmarra closest."

"Then let's get going," said Sora.

After he was done punching in the coordinates of Pymmarra, Donald said, "Hold on." As he pushed a button on the dashboard, the ship lurched forward, in a good way this time, and started going so fast that everybody had to close their eyes. When the ship leveled off from it's warp mode, it wasn't just Sora who looked out of the window. _Everyone_ watched as star after star silently passed outside of their window, anticipating the quest they knew was to come.

**To Be Continued… **

Well, I'm done now. I hope you liked it! I'll be gone for two weeks, so that probably means it'll take about that long to get the third chapter up. I actually get very excited when I look on to what I might be going to do with this story. I GET THE WILIES! I must go now! Stories are calling! This is The Mangosity saying, if you look like you're ID Picture, you need to go see a doctor.

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	3. III Heat Wave

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Kingdom Hearts, but I do own the islands of Saelius.

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Well, I finally got the third chapter of Black Terrace up. I hope those of you who are _actually reading _this story enjoy it. I'll try not to take so long with the next chapter, so after you're done don't think, "Darn, now I have to wait two months," okay? Now that I've bored you to death, how about you bring yourself back to life. Read on!

Black Terrace

_III. _**Heat Wave**

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_This has got to be the hottest place in the universe –Riku _

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The sun shone down upon barren land that was cracked in places from it's intense, never ending heat. There was no life at all except for a few shrubs, and even those seemed to have been tarnished and dried up by the heat. The sky was clear, but it wasn't a reassuring clarity, because it just made the climate seem even drier than it already was. There were no clouds, not even one, so that meant that the sun was free to scorch as much as it wanted to, without any interruptions. A light breeze tore through the air, but it didn't help the heat any and only made it hard to breath without getting a mouth or a nose full of dust. A large plateau overlooked this land, and at its edge stood a single figure.

"It's just a giant dessert," Sora said in awe of the light brown surface of the world. He bent down to touch the rock-for-ground he was standing on, but withdrew because it proved too hot for his fingers. The Gummi Ship wasn't too far behind him, and the moment it had touched down onto the world he ran out of it to see if Pymmarra really was nothing but a wasteland, and from his point of view it was. He put his hand up to his forehead to shield his eyes and looked out over the horizon to see if there was any sign of a building or anything else that signified people and civilization, but there wasn't anything.

"Sora, if you don't get back in here you're going to have a stroke," Kairi's voice could be heard from behind him. Sora stood up and looked towards the Gummi Ship where Kairi was standing in the shade of the doorway.

He ran over to her, "There's nothing out there," he said, "Only a bunch of rock."

"There's got to be somethingon this world," said Kairi, "We just have to find it."

"I'm not going out there," Riku's voice could be heard ringing around the ship. Turning around, Sora and Kairi saw Goofy trying to pull a hand around the corner.

"But you have to," Goofy said, pulling harder.

"Well I don't want to," Riku said, trying to pull back, but he fell to the floor when Donald gave him a shove from behind.

"You're going whether you want to or not," Donald said.

"And you call _me_ a sap," Sora said, looking down at his friend.

Riku shot him a look of hatred and said, "_You _wouldn't want to go either if you knew you were going to get a sunburn."

"You getting a sunburn?" Sora said, on the brink laughter at the thought, "Riku, you're from an island where it's sunny. You never got a sunburn before."

"Yeah, that's because I was wearing SPF 50 sun block," Riku said, getting to his feet.

"Just slap on some sunscreen and suck it up Riku," Sora said, "It can't be that bad, can it?"

"Oh, yes it can be that bad," Riku said, "Remember in the 5th grade when I wore that turtle neck sweater for a week?" Sora nodded. "That's because the sun had burned me all across my chest and on my neck when I forgot to put on enough sunscreen. It was _that bad_, and it hurt like hell."

"Riku, watch your mouth," Kairi said, wagging her finger at him.

"Well it's true," Riku said, crossing his arms, "And I can't put on any sun block because, if you haven't noticed, there is none."

"Whether there's sun block or not, we still have to get out and see if there are any people," Kairi said, "It's the only way we'll find Black Terrace. We should get ready." Everyone, even Riku, agreed that they probably should get prepared for the trek. Sora filled some thermoses with water, Donald stocked up on MP items, Goofy stocked up on HP items, Riku found the loosest long-sleeved tunic he could find for himself, and Kairi packed a bag full of food just incase anyone got hungry.

"Just so you know, I don't enjoy this," Riku said as he and the others all walked down the walkway that led out of the Gummi Ship. Sora looked back at Riku, who was sulking at the back of the line, and saw that he had large bundle of rope slung over his shoulder.

"Hey, what's that for?" Sora asked, noticing the rope. They got to the edge of the plateau and Riku dropped it to the ground.

"We're not going to fly over this cliff, are we?" Riku said. He went over to a nearby rock formation and started tying the rope to it.

"Hey, do you know what you're doing?" Donald said.

"I can tie a knot," Riku said as if he'd just been insulted.

"Yeah, but it would be pretty bad if we were to fall," Goofy said, pointing over the edge. Everyone looked down and saw the large plunge they would take if Riku didn't tie the rope correctly.

"We're not going to fall," Riku said, but then he got a pensive look on his face, "Of coarse, if we _were_ to fall to our deaths, at least I wouldn't have to deal with getting burned." A mischievous grin played itself out on his face.

"Okay, who thinks I should check the rope once Riku's done with it?" Sora said. Everyone raised their hands. Once every thing was secured, and once Sora made sure Riku hadn't, "booby trapped," the rope, they all started the climb down into the rocky desert. None of them were afraid of heights, but there was about a mile and a halve plummet waiting for them if they made even one mistake, so they couldn't help but be a little scared. Finally, after about twenty minutes, their feet finally touched ground.

"That was exhausting," Kairi said, "I had to carry all of this food with me."

Sora, who had also sat down, said, "Kairi, you can't tell me about exhausted. You only had to carry a bag of food, but _I_ had to carry five jugs of water. Do that, and _then_ you can tell me about exhausted." The others also sat down too and they all waited for a few more minutes before getting up again and trudging into the unknown. The whole reason for coming into this deserted land had been to find society and people, but as the minutes dragged on, there was no sign of anything of the sort. The heat radiated on tirelessly with a force that made everyone fed-up with it, yet grateful that Sora had brought water.

"Hey Riku," Sora said, letting himself fall level with Riku.

"What?" Riku said, in an annoyed tone. He must not have been having a very good day.

Trying to ignore Riku's demeanor, Sora said, "What's with the purple?" The shirt Riku was wearing was a smooth lavender, and ever since he'd changed into it Sora had been meaning to ask him about it.

"I'm wearing it so I won't burn," Riku said as if every idiot should have known it.

"How's that going to help?"

"Well, the long sleeves are supposed to keep the sun from shining directly on my skin, and it's loose so that's supposed to give me some air." He started rubbing his left arm. "It's not working. My arms are starting to tingle."

"Now that you mention it, my arms are starting to tingle too," Sora said, putting his hand into the air. He felt that sand was starting to make the air prickly as it flew past his arm.

"What's happening?" Donald said, "The wind's starting to pick up." Everyone stopped walking to look at clusters of sand that were starting to fly through the air, signifying the change in the wind.

"Hey, this feels kind of good," Riku said, looking up into the sky. He saw that clouds of dust were starting to dim the light of the sun. "Wait a minute." He walked over to Kairi and put a hand on her shoulder. "You see that?" he said, pointing in front of them

"Yeah," Kairi said, and then a look of shock shot onto her face, "No, it can't be." Riku and Kairi had a small conversation, to the confusion of Sora, Donald and Goofy, before Riku finally left Kairi's side and went over to Donald.

"Your Aero spell wouldn't happen to be strong enough hold off a sandstorm, would it?" Riku said.

"No," Donald said uneasily, "Why?" But he already knew why. Riku pointed to what he'd shown Kairi. A brown cloud of dust could be seen billowing towards them at a very high speed.

"That's a sandstorm," Riku said, "And it's coming this way."

He sounded nervous which lead Sora to say, "How are we going to get away?"

"We can't," Kairi said, "There's no place to hide."

"So what do we do?" Sora said forcefully.

"Let it hit us and hope we live," Riku said.

"Riku, you've really got to work on that, 'positive,' thing."

"Sora, this is no time to be arguing," Goofy said, "Feel the wind." Sora did, and realized that it was blowing harder than it had been just a few moments ago and was fanning his hair down. Just when everybody was starting to get used to the gust, the wind started getting even fiercer than it already was, and everyone's feet started sliding backwards.

"Hey," Sora said, drawing out his Key Blade and trying to jab it into the ground. That didn't work though, since the ground was too hard and he was sliding backwards so much that he couldn't get good footing. No matter what anyone did, they couldn't keep from eventually being lifted into the air by the passing sandstorm.

Sora was flying through the air, sand blinding him, and then the next thing he knew there was a heavy jerk at his stomach. He'd landed on sand that was very packed together, so it wasn't a very pleasant landing. He laid there in a daze for a moment before opening his eyes and coughing out a mouthful of sand.

"Is this whole world just _covered _in dirt?" he shouted, more to himself than to anyone else. He looked around, trying to rid his mouth of the sandy taste, and noticed that he was in the middle of nowhere. Not that he hadn't been in the middle of nowhere before the sandstorm, but at least he'd had some solid land to walk on. Right now he was surrounded by sand as far as the eye could see. "Great, now sand's going to get in my shoes," Sora mumbled, getting to his feet. He took a step forward and called, "Donald, Goofy," but no one answered. "Riku, Kairi." Still, no one answered his calls. He took one more step forward, and that's when he tripped. "Oh, what now," Sora said with frustration. He was starting to detest the taste of sand, even if it did remind him of his island.

The frustration he felt died down soon enough, as the thing he'd tripped over had been the strap of one of the thermoses he'd been carrying. His foot had gotten caught in it since it made a loop as it stuck out of the sand. He squatted down and lifted the strap out of the ground to find that the water inside of the thermos hadn't gotten any dirt in it. "It's a good thing they're air tight," Sora thought, opening the container and taking a few sips. After he'd quenched his thirst, Sora slipped the thermos' strap around his neck and let it hang like a satchel. He looked around again and found that if he looked close enough through all of the mirage water he was seeing, he could see a large rock that would definitely provide some shade for him. He figured it wasn't just a trick of the heat since it was thick and solid and wasn't wavering like the water, so he decided to go that way.

On his way over, Sora's foot was constantly sinking down into the sand and he'd have to stop and pull it out, which resulted in him having to dump sand out of his shoes. The sun was at his back, which was good to some extent. It wasn't in front of him so it wouldn't block his vision, but it would make his back hot, which Sora didn't like. He occasionally drank the water, but only in sips so that it wouldn't run out. Finally, after about forty-five minutes, Sora made it to the boulder, and to his relief it hadn't been a mirage and had plenty of shade for him to relax in.

"That's a big rock," Sora said as he gazed up at its largeness. It was several feet high and was probably even taller than it appeared, because halve of it was buried underneath the earth. Sora didn't really care about how tall the rock was as he stepped into its silhouette, because he immediately started feeling cooler the moment the shade touched him. He also started feeling sleepy as he walked along the rock's shadow to reach its base. He walked as far as he could until his back was pressed against the smooth wall of the rock, and then he slid down into a sitting position. "I'm tired," Sora said, stretching out his sore legs. He had, after all, just walked quite a few kilometers to get here. He slid down even further so that his side was lying on the cool sand. "The others can wait," he whispered, "I'm going to bed." And with that, he closed his eyes. In a few seconds he'd fallen asleep.

Kairi had not been as fortunate as Sora. She'd landed on harder land, and hadn't been able to find anything or anyone. She'd drank all of the water that she needed when she'd been with the others so she wasn't thirsty, but she knew that she was eventually going to need more water. She wandered through the desert trying to find her friends, but was loosing hope with every passing minute. After a while Kairi gave up and fell to her knees.

"Oh, I'm _never_ going to find them," she said, pounding the ground and sending dust up into the air. She looked all around her, but she couldn't find anything but rock. "Wait a minute." Kairi had to double take, as she saw a different color other than the light brown she'd been seeing the whole time. A little ahead of her was a mass of blue and purple. Inching closer, she could've sworn she saw a flash of silver. "Riku," she breathed, "No, it's not. It's just the heat. It's just the heat." But the closer Kairi got, the surer she was that this crumpled heap was Riku. He was lying on his side, eyes closed, and Kairi prayed that he would just disappear and end up being an illusion the moment her outstretched hand touched his arm, but he didn't. "Riku," she whispered. He didn't move. "Riku," she said, shaking him this time. He grunted and his arm shuddered a little. Yes, it was working. Now he only needed a little persuasion. "Hey," she shouted, and his eyes fluttered open. "Riku," Kairi said softly, "Are you alright?"

"Kairi," Riku muttered, and then he shot up. "Ow, don't touch me there." He knocked Kairi's hand away and gripped his shoulder.

"Riku, what's wrong," Kairi said in a worried voice. Riku rolled his right sleeve up to reveal a slightly reddening wrist. Kairi winced. "That must hurt," she said.

"Yeah," he said, letting the sleeve fall back down his arm, "Kairi, if I ever try to go out into a desert without sun block again, shoot me." Kairi smiled.

"Will do," she said, helping Riku up off of the ground. After steadying his slight sway, Kairi's smile changed to a small frown. "Riku, what's the last thing you remember?" Riku thought for a moment before replying.

"We were in a sandstorm, I think. Or was that a dream?" Riku seemed a little confused from just waking up and all, "I really don't know."

"That's what I thought," Kairi murmured so that Riku couldn't hear her. She'd been hoping that Riku was going to say walking in the desert, but if the last thing he remembered was the sandstorm, then that meant that he'd been unconscious the full hour since the storm, and would've stayed that way if Kairi hadn't come along. "Riku, do you feel alright?"

"I'm fine," Riku said, and then he added, "Sleepy, but fine." Kairi wasn't so sure about that though. Riku seemed more drained than he was letting on because of how tired his voice sounded. When Riku saw the worried gaze Kairi was giving him, he said, "Really Kairi, I'm just exhausted. I'll shake it off."

Kairi looked at Riku for a few more seconds before saying, "Okay. If you're sure." She cheered up a little, saying, "Come on. We have to find the others."

"Okay," Riku said, stretching out his sore back. Kairi went ahead, and after he regained his composure Riku soon followed. They looked for a good long while before realizing that it was practically impossible to find anything in this wide expanse of desert.

"Riku, this is pointless," Kairi said, putting her hand on Riku's shoulder, "We're not going to find them this way."

"It's not pointless," Riku said, turning to her, "We just have to keep looking." He was trying to be positive, but was actually having a hard time believing his own words. Kairi looked at him blankly.

"Riku, have you ever heard the saying about the needle and the haystack?"

Riku sighed, "Okay, so maybe you're right," he said, "But we can't just give up."

"But we can't just die in the desert either."

"We're not going to die," Riku said, crossing his arms.

"Hey, don't get huffy," Kairi said, pointing a finger at Riku.

"I'm not getting huffy," Riku said, glowering at her.

"Huffy," Kairi piped.

"I'm _not _huffy," Riku said, at last starting to become annoyed by Kairi's antics. As Riku and Kairi's argument rang around the desert, the pair failed to notice the small clopping of horse hooves. It wasn't until a large wagon that was pulled by a horse came up in front of them that they were startled out of bickering. "Um, Kairi," Riku said, "You _are _seeing this, aren't you?"

"I was just about to ask you the same thing," Kairi said, as equally amazed as Riku was. The wagon was made up of wood with metal poles that formed a dome shape on top of it. A sheet could be seen between the poles, tied on the inside so that it resembled a carriage rather than a wagon. They heard footsteps as someone started coming around from the front of the wagon to the back. A tall man in loose robe like clothing that looked like linen stepped in front of Riku and Kairi.

"Do you two need some help?" the man said with a kind voice.

At first nobody spoke, but Riku finally found his voice and said, "Um, yes please." He didn't want to seem like he was looking a gift horse in the mouth, but he couldn't help but say, "Why are you here?" Although the question seemed ungrateful, the way Riku said it made the man understand.

"I'm just here transporting supplies for my home village," he said.

"There's a village here?" Kairi said, "I didn't think that was possible."

"You'll see," the man said, chuckling, "That doesn't mater right now though." He pointed over at Riku, "You both should get out of the sun. You're friend over here's on the brink of overheating."

"Riku overheated?" Kairi said questioningly. She turned to Riku to see if he'd been confused by the comment, but when she saw that he looked a little guilty she frowned at him. "Riku, did you know about this?" she said. Riku sighed.

"Look Kairi, I'm hot, and I'm tired. Could we please just get inside of the cart and talk about this later?"

Now the man spoke again, saying, "Come on. You can rest yourselves in here." He grabbed them both by the wrist and led them onto the wagon between the flaps that the sheet made. The wagon was fairly big on the inside, and was probably big enough to hold about seven people comfortably. Crates were scattered all around the floor and the man beckoned for the Riku and Kairi to sit on them. "There isn't any particular place you two want to go, is there?"

"Well," Kairi said, "We _were _trying to find our friends. We all got separated during a sandstorm. Other than that, we really weren't going anywhere."

"Well it hasn't been that long since the sandstorm. I'm sure we'll run into your friends on the way over."

"Over where?" Riku said.

"Over to my village. You won't mind coming with me, will you?"

"Of coarse not," Kairi said, although she was curious to know how a village could exist in all of this heat. As the man turned to leave from the wagon, Kairi called out, "Wait. What's you're name?"

"Oh, I'm sorry," the man said as he turned back around, "My name is Kartoff." Riku and Kairi nodded and so Kartoff exited the wagon to get in the small driver's seat that commanded the horse that pulled the wagon. As it started to move, Kairi turned to Riku.

"Riku, why didn't you tell me you were getting tired? We could've stopped for a while," she said. She felt bad about not noticing how worn-out Riku had been when they were walking.

"It wouldn't have done anything for me even if we had stopped," Riku said, leaning against the tall crate behind him, "We would've still been in the sun." Now that they were inside of the wagon, Kairi was finally starting to see what the heat had really done to her friend. He was tired, she could see that, but the thing that really caught her attention was the thin pink ring that was starting to appear on his neck. It was his slowly spreading sunburn. Kairi gave a small giggle. "Well," she said, "It's a good thing we got you out of the sun before you turned into a big tomato."

"Be quiet Kairi," Riku murmured, closing his eyes, "Just be quiet."

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**Space For The Line Thing**

"There he is," Kairi whispered. She called up to Kartoff to stop the wagon and he complied. She got out and made her way over to a big stone that she'd seen a few feet away. As she got closer, she saw the outline of a small body. There was Sora, sleeping on his side with his back against the rock. Kairi inched along the shadow and put a gentle hand at his shoulder, "Hey, Sora," she said, giving him a little push. He grumbled and rolled over in his sleep. "Sora wake up. It's me." Kairi grabbed his arm and gave it a few forceful shakes.

"Five more minutes," Sora groaned, flailing his left arm in Kairi's direction.

"Sora you'd _better_ wake up this minute," Kairi shouted, bopping him on the head.

"Ouch," Sora cried sitting up, "Why did you…" Sora stopped. "Kairi?" he whispered, "Are you real?"

"Why don't you find out?" Kairi said, holding down a hand to help Sora up. Sora reached up, and when his hand touched Kairi's and he realized that she was real, he grinned and pulled himself up.

"How did you get here?" Sora said quizzically, "You didn't walk did you?"

"Look over there," Kairi said, pointing towards the wagon that was just a few feet away.

"How'd you get _that_?" Sora said with wonder.

"Here, come on," Kairi said, grabbing Sora's wrist and tugging him along, "I'll explain everything when we get there." Kairi's eagerness over finding Sora was obvious to him, as she kept a firm grip on him and yanked him all the way over to the wagon. She didn't let go of him until she'd set him on a crate inside the wagon and sat down on one herself.

"Are you all set down there?" Kartoff's voice came from above.

"We're ready," Kairi called, and in a few seconds the wagon jerked and started it's shaky journey forward. She then turned to Sora once the wagon got up a good pace and said, "So, are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Sora said. He paused. "How did you end up riding in a giant wagon?"

"Did you hear that man up there?" Kairi said, pointing up to where Kartoff was.

"Yeah."

"Well, his name is Kartoff. Riku and I ran into him while we were in the desert and he offered to give us a ride, so we've just been riding around trying to find everyone."

"Wait, Riku's here?" Sora said, looking around, "Where is he?"

"He's right over there," Kairi said, pointing behind a row of crates. Sora looked to where Kairi had pointed and saw Riku sleeping on the floor, his head resting against the pillow Kairi had found for him.

"Hey, is he okay?" Sora said, noticing that Riku was slightly flushed.

"Oh, he's just resting. He's tired because of the heat," Kairi said, "He'll be okay."

"Well, as long as he's alrig…"

"You big palooka," a really loud voice interrupted Sora's sentence from outside, "You can't dig for water underground, on top of _rock_."

"Sorry Donald," another voice said, "It seemed like a good idea when I thought of it."

"Hey, that sounds like Donald and Goofy," Sora said, standing up.

"Kartoff, could you stop for a second?" Kairi shouted.

"Okay," Kartoff said as the wagon started to slow. Sora and Kairi stuck their heads out of the entrance flap, and sure enough Donald could clearly be seen arguing a little ways away.

"Donald," Sora called, his hair flying in the wind, "Goofy." The two looked towards Sora and the wagon and their eyes lit up.

"Sora," they both said together. They didn't even wait for the wagon to stop. They ran towards it and got so close that they could jump in, and they did.

When they did, they fell all over Sora, who cried out, "Why does this _always _happen to me?"

"Kartoff, you can start up again," Kairi laughed, "We've found everybody."

"That's good," Kartoff called back, and the wagon sped up.

"Where have you guys been?" Sora asked once he'd gotten Donald and Goofy off of himself.

"We've just been walking around," Donald said, "Trying to find one of you."

"We didn't expect to find this though," Goofy said, referring to the wagon. They talked for a good long while, getting reacquainted, talking about how hot Pymmarra was, and discussing their mission of finding Black Terrace. After some time though, it got kind of boring just sitting there in the middle of a bunch of crates. Finally, after everyone thought they would just die of boredom, something strange happened. The whole slope of the wagon changed, meaning, the whole wagon started tipping forward.

"Hey, what's happening?" Sora said, reaching out and grabbing Riku's ankle to keep him from sliding right out of the wagon, pillow and all. Even though the wagon seemed to be tilting, the crates stayed in place and didn't slide around like everyone thought they would.

"Whatis going _on_?" Kairi said, making her way over to the entrance flap. When she pulled the sheet back, everyone saw that the land was slanted slightly, and that it looked like they were going down into something.

"That's something you don't see everyday," Sora grunted, once again tugging at Riku's leg.

"You've got that right," Donald remarked.

"Sorry if I didn't warn you," Kartoff said, "But we're going down a hill."

"A hill?" Kairi said, baffled by the thought, "Why would we be going down a hill?"

"Why don't you see for yourself?" Kairi let the sheets in her hands fall away and swayed a little as she walked over to the front of the wagon. She peeked her head out of the sheet's gap and gasped.

"It's amazing," she whispered. It was far away but Kairi could still see it. They were high above a funnel of dirt, a few miles wide, that seemed to be moist soil but was something much harder. Alcoves lined the funnel's walls and in every small opening was a whole house, complete with a lawn and a picket fence. The strange thing was that the area around every house shone brightly, so that it looked like each one was in the middle daytime. Thick dirt roads connected houses that were across from each other, and glass elevators connected houses that were in a stack. All of this amazing technology and architecture was right there in plain sight, and the wagon was going right towards it.

"Sora, Donald, Goofy, you've got to come see this," Kairi said, pulling herself back inside. Donald and Goofy climbed up to where she was, but Sora didn't.

"Okay, I'll come up there and goof off with you. It's not like I'm doing anything _important_," Sora said sarcastically. He had a death grip on the still sleeping Riku's leg, trying to keep him from sliding any further, but because of the declination and the fact that Riku was kind of heavy, Sora was having a hard time keeping his friend from tumbling right out of the wagon.

"Oh," Kairi said, rushing over to help. Together, with Sora pulling at Riku's legs and Kairi pushing at Riku's shoulders, they both managed to drag Riku behind a row of the, surprisingly durable, crates where he wouldn't slide around so much. Sora took a few breaths before finally standing up and going to where the others were. When he saw the vast expanse of houses and roads, he gasped.

He turned to Kartoff and said, "What is that?"

"It's Pymmarra," Kartoff said, coolly.

"_That's _Pymmarra? But how? Where are we?"

"Right now we're going underground. That's why we have to go down this hill. It's the only way to get down there into the town."

"The whole town's _underground_?" Sora said, amazed.

"Yes." Kartoff went on to explain about how the town was built underground because the land above was too hot for people to live there and about how they survived by and growing crops and finding springs and oases. "We have small hollows all over the desert," Kartoff said, "They're where we keep the food and grow it. I was just getting some of it to bring back when I ran into you."

"Oh," Kairi said, "So that's how you've been surviving in the dessert."

"That's how we've done it." There was a small silence before Kartoff said, "You five aren't from around here, are you?"

"Uh, what makes you say that?" Goofy said.

"Well, you aren't really dressed for traveling in the dessert." He turned to Sora. "Your entire outfit is black, and dark colors hold in heat." Then he turned to Kairi. "The material your dress is made out of doesn't get much air." Then he motioned inside the wagon where Riku was. "And your friend in there's wearing jeans, and they hold in heat too." He looked at Donald and Goofy and said, "I really don't need to say anything about you. It's obvious that you two aren't from _anywhere _around here."

Sora sniggered and Donald glared at him while Goofy said, "Well, I guess we can't argue with you about that." The conversation continued in laughter as the horse drawn wagon steadily made its way down into the cool interior of Pymmarra.

**To Be Continued…**

I really don't have anything to say here. Oh wait, yes I do. I'm not the kind of person to beg for people to review, but _this_ time, it's an exception. Review, or you will feel the pain of a thousand suns! Either that or I'll forget about you and I'll just be sad. Whichever way it goes will still be pretty bad! This is The Mangosity saying that little black cats that constantly meow can get annoying sometimes. I should know.

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	4. IV Heat Wave Cont'd

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Kingdom Hearts, but I do the really cool name of Black Terrace!

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Almost ashamed to put this up…haven't updated…feel guilty…I'M SORRY! Please Forgive Me. **;-;**

Black Terrace

_IV. _**Heat Wave (Cont'd)**

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_Deserts. Never again. –Riku_

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"Hey Sora," Kairi said, "Something's been bothering me."

"What is it?" Sora asked, looking away from Riku who was resting in the bed in front of them.

"While we were in Traverse Town, Sephiroth seemed to be working with Demeatrix." A sardonic smile played itself out on Sora's face.

"Sephiroth working with Demeatrix?" he said almost teasingly.

"What? Don't you think it looked like they'd teamed up?"

"No. Sephiroth wanted Black Terrace to be closed and Demeatrix wanted Black Terrace to be opened. It looked more like they were on opposite sides than working together."

"I guess you're right," Kairi said after thinking for a few seconds, "They _would_ be hard to beat of they were working together though."

"Even they are working together, it doesn't matter anyway," Sora said, "We can take 'em."

"Look who's talking," Kairi laughed, "Didn't Riku and I have to come save you the last time you fought Demeatrix?"

"Well, I…"

"And don't think I don't know about all those times you lost to Sephiroth on Radiant Garden."

"Hey, who told you about that?" Sora cried. He looked over at Riku. "It was Riku, wasn't it?"

"Sora, stop blaming me for your problems," came Riku's voice from the bed. His back was to Sora and Kairi, but it was obvious that he'd woken up.

"Oh, look who decided to wake up after two hours," Sora called.

"Oh, look who decided to break into my hotel room," Riku yawned, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

"Actually, you left the key in the lock," Kairi piped up. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the large, metal key. "We used it to get in."

"Technically, it's not breaking in," Sora added.

"I knew I'd forgotten something," Riku mumbled.

"So how's your sunburn?" Kairi asked, "Is it better?"

"Oh yeah, it's _much_ better," Riku said, his voice a lot more optimistic than it had been before. He reached to the small table beside his bed for a small jar. "Ever since I put this cream that Kartoff gave me on it, my arm's stopped hurting every time something rubs against it." He would've said more, but all of a sudden a large rumbling went around the room.

"What was that?" Kairi asked, standing.

"An earthquake?" Riku said, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and also standing.

"That was too short for an earthquake," Sora said. He moved to the door and opened it. He peered down the hallway and saw two figures rapidly acceleration towards him.

"Donald?" Sora said, squinting, "Goofy?" Before he could get out of the way, they were both on top of him. "Guys," he said, his voice as calm as he could make it, "Didn't we have a talk about this?"

"We know," Goofy said, starting to get off of Sora, "But we have something really important to show you."

"Hey, weren't you guys down in the basement?" Riku asked.

"Yeah. We were down there trying to find something out about Black Terrace. There's a library down there you know."

"Did you feel the shaking too?"

"Well," Donald said, "That's what we wanted to tell you about. While we were down there…" Another rumble shook the hall. "…Sephiroth showed up."

* * *

They walked down the spiral staircase, the only light coming from the torches that hung on the walls. In between the torches it was dark, so dark that the party had to really stare down at the steps to keep from falling. The fact that small earthquakes shook the staircases around every few minutes definitely didn't help their cause. 

"This whole town's run by electricity," Riku mumbled, his hand on the wall to feel his way, "Why can't they hand a few light bulbs from the ceiling?"

"They keep hay down in the basement," Sora said, "If you haven't noticed, some of the hay falls onto the stairs when they transport it." Riku had wondered what the crunchy stuff under his feet was. "Kartoff said that they can't use light bulbs because one might fall and set the hay on _fire_." Sora said the word fire rather forcefully.

"So they use torches?" Riku asked, his voice skeptical.

"Don't ask me why. They…" Suddenly, Sora made contact with something hard. This caused Riku to bump into Sora, Kairi to bump into Riku, Goofy to bump into Kairi, and Donald to bump into Goofy. Sora felt around on the wall in front of him and found a knob. "I think I bumped into a door," he grunted, moving his hand up to keep Riku from squishing him into the door. The group backed up and then Sora opened the door.

Inside was a large chamber with stone walls that almost resembled a cave. Bales of hay lay stored at the perimeters of the chamber, and a chandelier hung from the ceiling. At the head of the chamber there were three identical passageways that looked as if they had been carved into the wall.

"More fire," Riku mumbled, looking up at the chandelier. It was made of metal that intricately weaved in and out of itself, as if to mimic ivy, and an assortment of candles too abundant to count sat in small, leafy rungs.

"Okay, Donald, Goofy, which one of these corridors did you take?" Sora asked, turning to Donald and Goofy.

"It was the left one," Donald said, pointing to the left passage.

"No, Donald, I don't think it was that one," Goofy said, putting a hand to his head. He thought for a moment. "I think I remember us going through the right one."

"Goofy, we didn't go through the right one."

"Oh yeah, you're right," Goofy said, "It wasn't the right one."

Donald looked back at Sora and said, "See, we did…"

"It was the middle one," Goofy interrupted, which gartered an angry look from Donald.

"_Goofy_. It was the left one."

"I'm telling you. I'm pretty sure it was the middle one."

"Uh, guys, it's no big deal," Sora said, "There're more than one of us. We can just split up. One of us is bound to find the library if we do it that way."

"Okay, that's fair," Goofy said, "I'll just take the middle one…" Donald reached over and pulled Goofy away from the middle passage.

"Oh no. You're coming with me." Donald started dragging Goofy towards the left passage. "I'm going to prove to you that we really did take the left cave."

"Don't worry Goofy," Sora called after his friend as Donald led Goofy away, "I'll take the middle one for you." He turned to Riku and Kairi. "Do either of you want to come with me? Or do you want to just take the last cave?"

"We'll take the left cave," Kairi said, "Do you mind that Riku?"

"No. We can do that."

"Okay. I'll just go alone." Sora disappeared into his cave.

"Do you think he'll be all right going on his own?" Kairi asked Riku, once she was sure Sora wouldn't be able to hear her.

"Who? Sora? Of course he'll be all right," Riku said, "He's got the Key Blade, and he knows how to use it."

They started walking into their cave.

"I know," Kairi continued, "But Goofy and Donald said they saw Sephiroth down here, and you _are_ the one that told me about all those times he lost to Sephiroth." At this, Riku had to laugh.

"Oh yeah," he said, still laughing, "Thanks for not telling him that it was me that told you that. He would be mad if he knew I was making him look like a wimp in your eyes."

"Hey, Riku, I'm being serious," Kairi protested, though she too was smiling, "If he runs into Sephiroth alone, won't something bad happen?"

"You really shouldn't worry Kairi," Riku reassured her, "Sora doesn't _only_ know how to use the Key Blade. He knows how to hide. If he sees Sephiroth he'll just stay away from him. Sora knows he can't take him on alone."

"Yeah, you're right," Kairi said, finally deciding that Sora could take care of himself.

"You don't seem too worried about _us_," Riku said, "Aren't you wondering what would happen if _we_ ran into Sephiroth?"

"Oh, I'm not worried," Kairi replied calmly, "I've got you with me."

"Wait a minute. You've got all of this confidence in me, but you think Sora's going to get his butt kicked?"

"It's not so much confidence in you as it is confidence in your shielding skills," Kairi laughed, "If Sephiroth shows up, I'll just hide behind you."

"Very funny Kairi," Riku sighed. He looked ahead of him. This hallway was lighted in the same way as the staircase had been: with torches. There was hay on the floor, just as there had been on the staircase. "Somehow," Riku thought, "I have a feeling we're not going to find Sephiroth down this hallway." He was absolutely right.

* * *

It was extremely dark in the passageway. There were no lights here as there had been on the stairway, and as Sora felt his way along the rock wall he couldn't see anything. 

"This hallway goes on forever," he thought, "And it's so dark. I'm sure Donald and Goofy would have mentioned that if they'd taken this one." Sora was about to give up and go back to the entrance chamber when he saw a faint light up ahead. As he got closer to the light source, Sora realized that it was a candle. The candle was perched against the right wall, and though it wasn't very bright it let off enough light to reveal another corridor.

Sora looked in the direction he'd been traveling, and all he could see was darkness. When he looked down the newly discovered corridor though, he could make out several more candles hanging on the walls. He decided to take his chances with the lighted hallway, since he knew that Donald and Goofy probably would have taken the brighter passage if they'd come this way.

As Sora progressed down the corridor, he found that the further he went the more candles there were, and the brighter it got. Soon, once the candles had gotten so abundant that the light almost stung Sora's eyes, he came to a door. It was large and brown, and as Sora brought his hand out to turn the knob he heard a sound. He stopped. It was coming from behind the door, and it sounded like a voice. Sora pressed his ear against the door to try and hear what was going on behind it, but it was too hard. The door was thick and the voice sounded muddled.

Slowly, Sora turned the knob as silently as he could. He opened the door just far enough so that he could peer through it. He had to hold back a gasp. Standing in the center of the shelve-filled room, was Sephiroth. This wasn't as surprising to Sora as the fact that Kartoff was standing a few feet away from Sephiroth, calmly having a conversation with him.

"You know where Black Terrace is. I know you do," Sephiroth said, his voice ominous and commanding.

"I don't know where it is," Kartoff replied, "Just because I'm a Council Member of Pymmarra doesn't mean I know."

"You've _got_ to know where it is. Your people revere it." Sora could tell that Sephiroth was more than a little angry. He got the feeling the conversation had been going on for a while.

"Yes, but we revere it from afar," Kartoff said firmly, "We know it exists but we don't know where it is. Only the people that live on the island where Black Terrace _is _know the location of it."

Sephiroth lifted his arm up, and Sora realized that the large sword the Sephiroth wielded was in his grasp. The tip of it was awfully close to Kartoff's neck.

"You know what I'll do to you if you're lying to me, don't you?" Sephiroth asked, his voice oddly calm.

"Yes, I do," Kartoff said, "And I'm not lying."

"Good, because…" Sora didn't want to hear anymore. He knew he needed to get back to the others and warn them about where Sephiroth was. Sora went to close the door, but unfortunately, as he moved the door a large creak came from the hinges. Sephiroth's head immediately snapped in his direction. Sora gasped, closing the door the rest of the way and shooting up to his feet.

"If he finds me now," Sora thought, not quite having the mind to run, "I'm _dead_." As he heard Sephiroth's heavy footsteps coming closer to the door, Sora was finally snapped out of his fear. He spun around and started running, sprinting down the corridor, hoping he'd make it to the end where the shadows were before Sephiroth opened the door. It was no use to hope though, as it was impossible to get to the end before the wooden door behind Sora banged open.

"You," Sora heard Sephiroth shout, "Stop." Sora, of course, wasn't going to stop. If he did stop, Sephiroth would catch him. Even if Sora didn't stop, Sephiroth probably still would've caught him. This was why Sora needed to make it to the end of the corridor. There were shadows at the end, and if he made it there the darkness would allow him to get away from Sephiroth.

It was impossible to make it though. Before Sora knew it, Sephiroth had zipped in front of him. Sora immediately stopped, jumping back and summoning the Key Blade.

"So, you're here," Sephiroth said, his voice cold. He held up his sword. "You shouldn't be."

"What about _you_?" Sora cried, putting a little more distance between himself and Sephiroth, "You shouldn't be here either."

"I can go where I want to," Sephiroth growled, rushing at Sora, his sword held at the ready.

Sora held the Key Blade up, blocking Sephiroth's attack. He pushed the sword away, trying to figure out a way to get away from this.

"He's too strong," Sora thought, "I can't beat him alone." He knew he had to get back to Goofy, Donald, Riku and Kairi, but with Sephiroth blocking the way doing this was starting to seem impossible. Sora was forced away from his thoughts now, as Sephiroth once again charged at him. Sora darted out of the way of the attack, counterattacking with a quick thunder spell. Sephiroth winced, lowering his sword, letting his guard down.

Sora took this chance to try and escape, thinking that Sephiroth was injured. Sephiroth was quick to recover though, and as Sora ran past him Sephiroth managed to grab Sora's arm.

"Hey, let me…" Sora started, but gasped. Sephiroth had coiled his fingers around Sora's neck. Sora tried to move the Key Blade forward and hit Sephiroth with hit, but it was in the hand of the arm Sephiroth had grabbed. "…Stop…" Sora tried to say, groping at Sephiroth's too-strong grip, but he found that his voice wouldn't work.

"Stop it _now_," came Kartoff's voice. Sora averted his gaze from Sephiroth to the head of the corridor, where he saw that Kartoff was standing just feet away from Sephiroth.

"This doesn't have anything to do with you," Sephiroth growled, not relinquishing his hold on Sora in the least.

"Yes, it does," Kartoff persisted, taking a step forward, "You gave me your word that you wouldn't hurt anybody on Pymmarra if I came and spoke with you about Black Terrace." He motioned towards Sora. "He may not be a citizen, but he is on Pymmarra. Let him go."

Sephiroth stared down at Sora for a few more seconds, and then, without warning, he tossed him to the ground. Sora landed with a dusty thud, gasping and coughing.

"You're lucky I need you. Otherwise you would have been dead a long time ago," Sephiroth said, his voice cold, "Now stay here." Sephiroth turned to face Kartoff. "Tell me what you know again."

Sora watched as the two men above him exchanged words. He knew that if he tried to escape and Sephiroth caught him again, that would be the end. Sephiroth would lose patience with him, and something terrible would happen.

"I can't just stay here though," Sora thought, "The others will come." Sora was positive that his friends were probably wondering where he was right about now, and they would probably come looking for him if he took too long. He couldn't let that happen. If they showed up, the situation would get way too out of hand. Sora took a deep, silent breath. Then, without making a sound, he stood, and slowly started making his way over to his only exit.

* * *

"Did you find anything?" came Goofy's voice. Riku and Kairi were just emerging from their cave to find that Donald and Goofy had returned before them. 

"No," Riku sighed, "All we found was another room full of hay."

"You did better than we did," Donald grumbled. He seemed to be in a bad mood at the moment. "All we found was a blank cave."

"Oh, Donald, stop being so grouchy," Goofy said, giving Donald a small pat on the back, "You're just mad because I was right."

"Hey," Kairi said, her voice pensive, "You _were_ right." She looked at the middle passage. "And Sora hasn't come back yet." There was a small silence as each of them stared down the small cave, as if they expected to see Sora at any second.

Finally, Donald broke the silence, saying, "Should we go look for him?"

"That might not be the best idea," Riku said.

"Why wouldn't that be a good idea?" Kairi asked, her voice surprised.

"Well, if Sora actually has found Sephiroth he's probably hiding, and if all of us go barging in there we might accidentally call Sephrioth over to him," Riku explained.

"Let's give him a few more minutes," Goofy suggested, "And then if he hasn't come back we can…" He stopped. No one had to ask him why. All of them heard the fast paced footsteps coming from Sora's cave. In a few seconds Sora had dashed passed all of them. Before anyone could say anything to Sora he'd quickly come to a halt and spun around.

"He's…in there…" Sora panted. He was obviously very flustered.

"Sephiroth?" everyone asked at once.

"Yes," Sora breathed, "He's…talking to Kartoff." At this point, Sora felt too exhausted to keep talking, so he kneeled down to catch his breath.

"Cure," Donald's voice rang around the cave. As green light enveloped him, Sora felt the tiredness instantly being drawn away from him. He sighed and looked up at Donald.

"Thanks," he said, his voice extremely gracious, "I really needed that."

"Did you just say that Sephiroth was talking with Kartoff?" Riku asked as Sora made his way to his feet.

"Oh, yes," Sora said, "I saw Sephrioth and Kartoff talking, and I think Sephrioth is threatening Kartoff to try and find out where Black Terrace is." Sora looked down the cave he'd just come out of. "Sephiroth found me, but I got away. I don't think he's knows I'm gone."

"What was Sephiroth doing?" Riku asked curiously.

"I already told you he was talking to Kartoff."

"But was he doing anything else?" Riku seemed to really be thinking something through.

"No."

"Then there's no explanation for the rumbling."

"Rumbling?" Sora asked. He thought for a few moments before remembering the small earthquakes that had made them come down to the basement in the first place. One hadn't happened for a while, and so he'd completely forgotten about them. "Oh. Right. Well, it still could've been Sephiroth. He wasn't doing anything when I saw him, but he could've been doing something before I got there."

"No," Riku said, his voice showing that he was extremely sure of himself, "Think about it. What could Sephiroth possibly do that would make an entire world shake?"

"We don't know if he shook the entire world Riku."

"Still though. Even if only a small part shook, Sephrioth couldn't have made that happen." Sora thought of all of the things that Sephiroth could do, and found that Riku had a point. Sephiroth was powerful, but he couldn't cause an earthquake. Sora turned to Donald and Goofy.

"Donald, Goofy," he said, "Tell us exactly what happened when you went to the library before."

"Okay," Goofy said, "We were in the library trying to see if there were any books about Black Terrace, but we didn't really get a chance to look at any books since Sephiroth showed up before we could."

"Is that all?" Sora asked.

"Yeah," Donald said, "Once that happened we started running. That was near when the rumbling started, so we just thought it was Sephiroth that was making it."

"It couldn't have been him though," Riku said, "It's got to be something else."

"But what else could make earthquakes?" Kairi asked.

"They could just be natural earthquakes," Sora suggested, "It doesn't necessarily have to be something ba…" A strange, almost dizzying sensation suddenly came over Sora, and it was a sensation he knew well. "Heartless," he blurted out, "I feel the heartless."

"You do?" the group chorused. Sora nodded.

"But I can't tell where they are." During his various journeys and adventures, Sora had found that he could sometimes feel whenever the heartless were near, and at the moment Sora was positive that the heartless were very close. Sora looked all around him, trying to pinpoint the location of the creatures. Then he suddenly got a surprised look on his face and his head shot up to the ceiling. "Of course," he said, his voice firm, "How could I have missed it?" He summoned the Key Blade and looked to his friends. "The chandelier," he said, pointing to the fixture, "It's the Key…"

There was nothing Sora could do to stop what happened next. He saw Sephiroth coming down the hallway, racing directly for him. He saw the hatred and ferocity burning in the man's eyes, but still there was nothing he could do. There was a clear path between Sephrioth and Sora, and once Sora noticed the small flicker of movement that was Sephiroth, he couldn't do anything to avoid the onslaught.

Goofy, Donald, Riku and Kairi watched in horror as Sephiroth collided with Sora, sending him crashing into the rear wall. There was no sword in Sephiroth's hand. He only used his fists. Sora gave a cry as he made contact with the wall. He fell to the ground, listless but for his coughing. He could've sworn he tasted blood, but he ignored the metallic taste as he slowly staggered to his feet. The fact that his friends had already drawn out their weapons behind Sephiroth made Sora feel a little bit better about the situation, since he felt likely to drop to the floor at any moment.

"That'll teach you to defy me," Sephiroth growled, eyeing Sora with a look of detest.

"Sephiroth," Sora said, his voice small but firm, "Even _you_ know what will happen if I don't seal this world's Key Hole."

"Yes, I do know, but I really don't care," Sephiroth said, "The heartless can have this world's heart. Black Terrace isn't here." Before Sora could really have a chance to let this bit of information work its way through his mind, another voice filled the chamber, one Sora had completely forgotten about.

"If you don't care about this world, then leave," Kartoff called. All heads turned to the entrance of the middle passage, where Kartoff stood, his expression one of controlled anger.

Sephiroth didn't turn to face Kartoff, but merely said, "You're speaking out of line again."

"I'm not speaking out of line at all," Kartoff asserted. He took a step forward, and Goofy, Donald, Riku and Kairi cleared a path for him, still keeping their weapons ready. "You're no master to me. Besides, you haven't held up your end of the deal." He motioned to Sora. "You've hurt him _twice_, so why should I hold up my end?"

"You really are a fool…" Sephiroth started, but he suddenly stopped and snapped his head to the side, narrowing his eyes. "You want me to leave?" he asked, "Fine then." With that, he was gone. He had vanished. This action confused the people in the room quite a bit. Sephiroth, who was perfectly capable of fighting everyone in the room and winning, had just decided to leave without being forced to.

Sora thought, and it only took a few seconds for him to come up with a reason for Sephiroth's abrupt leave. Sephiroth was a person from the darkness. In fact, he almost _was_ darkness. Sephiroth could feel them. He'd known they were coming.

After a few moments of silence, Sora looked up to the chandelier and stepped forward. He needed to finish what he'd started. That's just what he would've done, too, if he hadn't stumbled over his own feet. This small act brought everyone's attention back to the fact that Sora had just gotten himself clobbered by Sephiroth no more than five minutes ago.

"Hey," Donald called out to Sora, "Do you need me to cure you again?"

Sora regained his footing, putting a hand to his head before saying, "No. I'm fine." After a second, he added, "But if any of you has a potion, now would be a good time to let me have it." Riku was about to reach into his pocket and pull out a small purple orb, the kind that contained a potion, when the largest tremor that had happened on the world shook the ground.

"What's making that happen?" Kartoff asked, "There're rarely any earthquakes here, but they've been happening all day today." Before Sora could even begin to explain to Kartoff about the heartless, they came. In an explosion of darkness they appeared all around the area. The fatigue Sora felt immediately faded away as he sprung into action.

"Goofy, Donald, Riku, Kairi," he shouted, "Keep them away from the chandelier. It's the Key Hole." He turned to Kartoff. "Kartoff, you need to get out of here." Kartoff nodded and managed to make it to the entrance staircase, as the others rushed into battle. A variety of heartless had shown up to fight. There were Crimson Jazzes and Red Nocturnes, Fiery Globes, and a Fat Bandit. A few Shadows made appearances in the ensemble of heartless, but most of the heartless were fire based.

As Sora, Donald, Riku, and Kairi hacked away at the heartless surrounding them, they found that another heartless would appear for each one that was destroyed.

"Why won't they stop coming?" Kairi asked, jumping out of the way of a flare of fire. She was the only one in the group who didn't know the answer to the question.

"It's the Key Hole," Riku answered her, "They're here to take Pymmarra's heart. As long as the Key Hole's still open, they'll try to get to it." He turned to Sora. "Why haven't you sealed it yet Sora?"

"Be_cause_," Sora shouted, knocking a Fiery Globe out of his way, "Every time I try to more heartless show up and I have to clear them away. I can't fight and seal the Key Hole at the same time."

"I can help with that," came Goofy's voice from behind him. Sora turned around to see Goofy with his shield held up.

"You mean you'll back me up?" Sora asked, happy that this battle might end soon.

"Uh-huh," Goofy nodded.

"Okay," Sora said, "Come on. We have to get underneath the chandelier." Sora ran towards the chandelier, Goofy right behind him to bat away any heartless that decided to come for Sora. Finally, Sora had reached his destination. He was directly underneath the chandelier. He looked to Goofy to make sure he was still holding off the heartless, and when he saw that the situation was under control he thrust the Key Blade into the air, and nothing happened. "What?" Sora exclaimed. He gave the Key Blade an emphatic little shake as if that would make it work, but still nothing happened.

"Are you sure this is the Key Hole Sora?" Goofy asked as Sora brought the Key Blade back down.

"I'm positive it is," Sora said, confusion lining his voice, "I can feel the heartless building up the most around this area."

"If you're sure this is the Key Hole, then maybe it's just incomplete," Goofy offered.

"You mean like when we were on Hollow Bastion?" Sora asked. Goofy nodded. "That can't be true. There's nothing that could make it incom…Oh come _on_." Sora suddenly stomped his foot against the ground.

"Uh…Sora?" Goofy asked, wondering why his friend had had such an unexpected outburst. Sora had been so loud that even his friends who were fighting the heartless had taken a few seconds to stare and wonder about him. Though his friends thought it was strange, Sora did have a good reason to be so exasperated. Upon looking up at the brightly lit chandelier, Sora had found that of the tens of candles adorning the piece, one was not lit.

"Goofy, I think you were right," Sora said, showing Goofy the unlit candle.

"Can't you just use magic to light it?" Goofy asked. Sora shook his head.

"Ever since we woke up in Twilight Town, I haven't been able to project fire. If I cast a fire spell, the fire will just come up and surround me."

"Then what do we do?"

"I don't know," Sora admitted, "We need to light that candle, but I don't know how to get that high." The chandelier was at least ten feet off of the ground, and Sora was, of course, nowhere near that tall. A flurry of motion suddenly caught Sora's eye and his head snapped to the right. It turned out to be Riku trying to catch a Red Nocturne, waving his Key Blade around in the air to try and snatch a hit at the thing as it hovered just above the range of Way To Dawn. That's when Sora got an idea. "Goofy," Sora said, turning to his friend, "I think I know what to do. Could you stay here while I go do something?"

"Yeah," Goofy said, swatting another heartless away, "But what are you going to do?"

"You'll see." Sora ran across the sea of heartless, occasionally destroying one of the things, before finally making it over to Riku, who was hunched over on his knees panting, obviously having given up any hope he'd had of striking the Red Nocturne. "Riku," Sora called, snapping his friend's attention up to him, "How tall are you?"

"Um…why?" Riku asked, staring at Sora like he'd just said the craziest thing ever.

"Just tell me," Sora prompted, "Quickly." Riku stared at Sora for a few seconds before bringing his fingers up to his eyes and counting with them.

"I…think I'm about 5'9"," Riku said, lowering his hand, "But I'm not so sure." Sora stared at Riku blankly.

"You're not sure about how _tall_ you are?" he asked disbelievingly.

"Well, it didn't really occur to me to check my height once we got back to the island," Riku replied, "Not all of us have to measure ourselves everyday."

"I'm just going to ignore that last comment," Sora said bitterly, "Anyway, since I'm 5'3", that means that our combined height would be…" Sora took a moment to calculate the height. "…eleven feet and one inch."

"Yeah, Sora, that's great and all," Riku said, whipping his Key Blade up in time to block the whirling attack of a Soldier, "But why did you chose right now to figure that out?"

Sora turned to face the chandelier and Riku followed his gaze.

"You'll see," Sora replied.

…**:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:…**

Sora reached up to the little candle, his hand stretching out almost as far as it could go. His plan was a very simple one. All he had to do was grab a candle on the chandelier that was lit, and then carefully move it over to the barren candle to light it. At the moment Sora's hand was less than half an inch away from the candle. He only had to move a little further to touch it, and he probably would have touched it, too, if he hadn't suddenly lurched forward.

"Riku," Sora called down bellow him, "You have to stand perfectly still."

"That's easy for you to say," Riku shouted, "My hair keeps getting pulled, and you're _heavy_."

Sora's plan hadn't gone exactly the way he thought it would. The chandelier was very high up, and Riku was a tall person. It was these notions that led Sora to come up with a simple plan, a plan that Riku didn't like very much. Basically, he was supposed to sit on top of Riku's shoulders, after convincing Riku that it was a good idea, and the added height was supposed to give Sora the altitude he needed to reach the candles.

In his head the plan had seemed foolproof, but there were a couple of things Sora forgot to think about. First of all, Sora was sitting on top of Riku, which meant that instead of being 11'1" they were brought down to about eight feet. Sora was either going to have to stand on Riku's shoulders, (which would break Riku's back even quicker than Sora's sitting) or he was going to have to make due with what he had. Second of all, Riku was not the strongest person in the world nor was Sora the lightest. Every time Sora got close to the candle he wanted, Riku's grip would falter, and they would have to stop and recollect themselves.

"Come on Riku, just one more time," Sora goaded, "I almost had it that time."

"Okay, fine then," Riku said, his tone rather forced, "But Sora this is the last time. If you don't get it now you're going to have to find another way to do this." Riku started straightening up again, and Sora stretched his hand out. Once again he was less than an inch away from what he wanted. He just had to grab the candle, and then it would be easy after that. All he would have to do would be touch the candle's flame to the empty wick next to it, and the Key Hole would be complete. He was touching the candle now, relief flowing through him as he finally made some progress.

"Sora," came a small grunt from Riku, "Hurry up. I'm _dieing_ here." Sora could tell Riku was getting tired, so he quickly wrapped his fingers around the warm candle and pulled it out of its rung. He moved the flame to the unlit candle and the candle burst to life with light. The Key Hole was complete.

"Got it," Sora shouted, replacing the candle in his hand to its spot on the chandelier. He summoned the Key Blade, and almost immediately a thin beam of light shot out to the very top of the chandelier. A distinctive clicking sound rang around the area as the Key Hole was finally sealed. "Riku, it's…" Sora started, but he was interrupted by Riku.

"S…Sora," he shouted, "Dismiss the Key Blade." It was too late for that though. Sora had already thrown off Riku's balance. Sora wavered in the air for a moment before both he and Riku went tumbling backwards. They both hit the ground with a large thump. Sora lay there for a moment in a daze before Riku's voice snapped him back to his senses.

"What did you say?" Sora asked, still trying to shake the daze of falling. He hadn't even noticed it when Riku stood up.

"I _said_, if you ever ask me to do something like that again, don't expect an answer." Riku was annoyed at the moment, so Sora decided not to pursue the subject, and to just agree with anything Riku said. Sora sat up and Riku offered his hand down to help him stand.

"Sora," came Donald's voice from behind, "Is the Key Hole sealed?"

"Yeah," Sora said, turning to face his friend, "I did it."

"Good," Donald said, "Less heartless are appearing now." Sora looked around and saw that Donald was right. The heartless numbers were finally starting to decrease.

"Since the Key Blade is sealed, they don't have any reason to want to be here anymore," Sora said, lifting his Key Blade up. Riku summoned his Key Blade, and together, they all defeated the last of the heartless.

…**:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:…**

"So those creatures won't come back again?" Kartoff asked.

"No," Sora replied, "I've sealed your world off to them. They won't have any reason to come back."

"Good." After defeating all of the heartless, Sora, Donald, Goofy, Riku, and Kairi had found Kartoff and told him what they'd done, and then he'd offered to let them rest at his house for a while. The group had taken him up on his offer, as they were tired, and Kartoff's house was much closer than their hotel rooms. That had been a while ago, and now Sora knew it was time to go.

"Kartoff, I think we should go now," Sora said, standing from the lush chair he'd been in, "We have to find Black Terrace and make sure Sephiroth doesn't do anything to it." Sora left out the part about finding Cloud. Kartoff didn't need to know that much.

"About Sephiroth," Kartoff said, his tone a little worried, "Have you made sure that he doesn't come back as well?"

"We haven't done anything to make sure he doesn't come back, but don't worry," Sora reassured Kartoff, "He only came here to try and find Black Terrace, and now that he knows it's not here he won't come back."

"Okay," Kartoff said, the relief evident in his voice, "If he came back I don't know what we'd do." By this time the others had stood, and so Kartoff went to the door to open it for them so they could make their leave. "Thank you for everything. I really don't know what I would've done if you all hadn't been here."

"It was no problem," Sora said, walking out the door with his friends, "It's what we do." Kartoff gave a small smile at this.

"Well, take care."

"Bye," they all chimed in unison. As they all walked down one of the dirt roads, aiming to reach the exit, something occurred to Riku.

"Guys?" he called, "Where did we park the Gummi Ship?"

"We parked it at the top of that cliff," Donald replied, "I was driving when we did it."

"We got caught in the sandstorm though," Riku continued, "How do we know where that one cliff is? It could be miles from here."

"I guess we'll just have to look," Sora said. Riku stopped dead in his tracks. "Riku why'd you stop?" Everyone turned to face Riku as he started walking in the other direction. "Riku?" Sora called, but Riku just kept walking.

"I forgot something in my hotel room," Riku called over his shoulder, "I'll catch up with you."

"What could he have possibly forgotten?" Sora asked, "We didn't bring anything."

"I think I know what he forgot," Kairi said, a smile on her face, "If we're going to wander around in the desert again, he's going to need that cream Kartoff gave him. I don't think he wants to be a giant tomato again."

**To Be Continued…**

**PLEASE READ THIS PARAGRAPH! **

I lost a story on this site, and it was very good! So good, in fact, that I need help. Could you please read this description and see if you know which story it is? I really want to know what happens in it! I can't remember the title or anything, so if you know which story I'm talking about, could you leave a quick review? Thanks!

Riku and Sora are at detention.

They get out of detention and go over to the island with Kairi.

Sora, Riku, and Kairi challenge Selphie, Wakka and Tidus to a match, losers buy the winners lunch.

Sora's gang ends up winning, and when Selphie, Wakka, and Tidus come back from buying them lunch, Selphie has found a "pet." The pet is a Shadow heartless.

While the others leave the island, Sora, Riku, and Kairi have to fight the many heartless that have started appearing. Sora is afraid that he and his friends will get separated again, and so Kairi gives him a locket.

A Darkside heartless ends up appearing before Sora can look inside the locket.

In the end, the Darkside proves hard to defeat, but they manage to do it. Riku and Sora are tired, but they hold out since they're used to battles like this. Kairi on the other hand ends up passing out since she hasn't had much experience with her Key Blade.

Pete shows up through a dark portal and kidnaps Kairi. Riku and Sora couldn't stop him since he was too far away, but they're able to get through Pete's dark portal before it closes.

The two walk around in darkness for a while before Sora sees blood in front of his eyes from a previous blow to the head. He starts sinking into the ground and he hears Riku's voice call his name before fainting.

The scene turns to Clarabell and Max. They're at Disney Castle having a conversation.

Max is the one that spots a boy lying on the ground unconscious, (Sora), and so they go get help for him.

Sora is taken to a room in the castle so that he can rest, and he wakes up in the middle of the night.

He looks at the locket, which has a picture of him and his friends in it, and he ends up feeling sad because he knows they've once again been separated.

After this he falls asleep.

Sorry the description was so long. I just put everything I know about the story into it. Now, will somebody _please_ help me? I don't think I can go on without knowing what happens with this story!

* * *

Well, it may have taken forever to come out, but at least it was long, right? I hope I haven't lost any of you readers! If I have, I guess you won't be able to hear this apology. --U I'm sorry! The story just seemed too awkward every time I tried to start it. I finally came to ends with myself and chose this. I hope you all enjoyed it! This is The Mangosity saying, maybe America _should_ change to the metric system…

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	5. V Sea Sick

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Kingdom Hearts, but I do own certain mind controlling objects.

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YAY! I actually updated at a reasonable time! And I hope you people that were wondering about my Japanese summary are happy! Here's the translation of my summary: 

_Cloud's disappeared and nobody knows where he's gone. Their only lead is the name of Black Terrace. The light wants to keep it alive, yet the darkness wants it obliterated. It's a race against time to see who can get to the legendary Black Terrace first._

That was the original summary that I had for this story. When no one would read it, I was tragically forced to put it into Japanese! It may not have been the best idea, but hey, at least now people are reading it, right? Well, enjoy the story!

Black Terrace

_V. _**Sea Sick**

* * *

_I know I wasn't supposed to, but it was just so tempting… –Sora_

**

* * *

**

The Gummi Ship was flying smoothly. It made a low buzzing noise as it traveled in its large circle that Donald had programmed it to make. He and Goofy were trying to figure out where the coordinates to the next world were, so there was not anywhere to go at the moment. As they argued over which course to take, Sora was in one of the rooms in the back of the ship, fast asleep. Riku was in the room down the hall from his, most likely complaining about how he'd still gotten a sunburn no matter how much he'd tried not to. Kairi was probably in there with him making suggestions on how to make it better. As for Sora, he was completely worn out. He was too tired to try and help Riku cope with his problems, or to even complain about anything, so he didn't try, and just decided to keep sleeping.

"Black Terrace," he thought, his mind halfway between sleep and being awake, "Why are we trying to find it again?" Sora's brows furrowed a bit as he tried to remember the reason. He knew it was to find Cloud, but why had they chosen Black Terrace as a good place to look?

_Ansem's computer showed us that someone had been looking at files about Black Terrace. Access was denied when we tried to look at them._

"Oh yeah," Sora said out loud. Cid had said that. Because the computer said that someone looked up Black Terrace, the Restoration Committee down at Radiant Garden assumed that it had been Cloud. "But how do they know it was Cloud that looked at those files?" Sora thought, "It could have been anybody." As soon as he thought it though, Sora knew that it was unlikely that anybody other than Cloud had used the computer.

It was usually only Committee members that went to Ansem's study, but it couldn't have been one of them that had used the computer, since they were the ones that had called Sora and the others to look for Cloud in the first place. It couldn't have been a civilian either, since none of them ever strayed from the populated areas of Radiant Garden. Though Sora didn't _think_ Cloud was on the Restoration Committee, he knew Cloud to be a person that did what he wanted.

"I guess it really was Cloud then," Sora thought, rolling over onto his side, "There's no one else it could be." Now that his mini-problem was solved, Sora decided to let himself drift off to sleep. No sooner had he reached the black void than he felt himself being jostled awake.

"What is it Riku?" he asked, shielding his eyes from the lights Riku had turned on and looking up at his friend.

"The King's on the phone thing upstairs," Riku said, "He wants to talk to all of us."

"Is it important?" Sora groaned, bringing the sheets up to his neck and rolling over to try and go back to sleep.

"I don't know," Riku said, his tone hinting annoyance, "But even if it isn't important and he just called to say hi, he still wants to talk to all of us." Sora didn't answer him. "Which means you're going to have to get out of bed." Sora still didn't answer him. "_Sora_." Riku reached down and pulled the blankets off of Sora. Sora gave a small yelp and brought his legs up to his chest as the warmth was taken away.

"Okay, okay, I'm up Riku," he shouted, giving Riku a slight glare. He sat up and rubbed his eyes. "So what _does _the King want?"

"I already told you I don't know," Riku replied, "He's probably waiting for you to get up there before he tells us."

"Hey, I'm awake, aren't I?" After getting his shoes on, Sora followed Riku up to the cockpit where everyone was standing around. There was no doubt in Sora's mind that they were waiting for him.

"Your Majesty, I got him," Riku called out.

"Is everyone there?" came King Mickey's voice. It was coming from a small horn-shaped object on the dashboard and the emblem of Disney Castle was up on screen.

"We're all here," Goofy said.

"Good. I'm going to have to ask you all for a favor," the King said, "You see, we've run into a little trouble here at the castle and we're going to need some help."

"There's nothing wrong with the Cornerstone again, is there?" Sora asked, remembering what they'd had to do the last time something like that had happened.

"No, it's nothing as bad as that. It's just that there's a little…problem with the enchanted brooms."

"They went crazy again, didn't they?" Donald said, crossing his arms.

"Yes, they did," the King said, his voice sounding a little defeated, "I think the spell you put on them is starting to fade again. They won't listen to anything we tell them and they made a gigantic mess in the library, and the kitchen is _ruined_." King Mickey gave a pause, and Sora could have sworn he heard Queen Minnie in the background, screaming the work "stop" over and over again.

"Um…do you want us to come over there?" Riku asked, obviously having heard the Queen as well.

"Not all of you," the King replied, "I want Donald to come fix the spell on the brooms, and I want Goofy to come and help us all clean up once everything's under control. Sora, Riku, Kairi, since you wield Key Blades I want you to stay and continue with your mission."

"So you want to _borrow_ Donald and Goofy?" Sora asked.

"Yes. It'll only be for a few hours though. Can you three handle that?"

"Of course," Kairi said.

"Good. Donald, Goofy, when's the soonest you can get here?"

"We'll come right now," Donald replied, "We just got finished figuring out how to get to the next world."

"Okay. That's good. Just hurry before they…" There was a sudden round of clangs that made the party jump.

"Your Majesty, are you all right?" Goofy asked.

"Yeah," the King sighed, "The brooms just made it into the trophy room. I've got to go now. Bye." There was a clicking noise and the emblem on screen disappeared.

Donald went over to the dashboard's keyboard and started typing, and after a few moments something started printing from the slit to his right.

"Here," Donald said, holding the paper out to Riku, "You can use these numbers to get to the next world while we're at the castle." He pointed to a number pad on the dashboard. "Just type them in there and the ship will take you there on its own."

"Okay," Riku said, accepting the paper, "But why are you giving this to me?"

"Because you're the only one I trust not to crash into a meteor," Donald replied.

"That only happened _once_," Sora protested. Kairi gave a small laugh while Riku smirked and shook his head at Sora.

* * *

The sea was blue, shimmering in the sun's glow. The giant boats that lined the enormous dock rocked with its waves. Some of them were clipper ships, obviously being used for transporting goods, but others seemed more like cruise ships. There was nothing out over the horizon. The next source of land was that far away. The dry sand was almost unbearably soft, the wet even softer. 

"I didn't think it was possible," Sora said, his voice quiet.

"I know," Kairi said, equally in awe.

"Guys, it's not that unbelievable," Riku said from behind them.

"Yes it is," Sora and Kairi replied in unison. As they stood on the shoreline of the water-world Quarius, Sora and Kairi couldn't believe that they'd actually found a world with more water on it than their home world. The island they were standing on at the moment was one of two islands that covered the world. The other island was on the opposite side of the world. Other than these two landmasses, Quarius was covered entirely by water. There was so much water on Quarius that they hadn't been able to land the Gummi Ship, and instead had had to set up a swirling green teleporter site in a back alley.

"And you thought you hated it on Destiny Islands," Sora said, looking at Riku, "You would've just died if you'd lived here."

"I didn't _hate_ it," Riku said, staring from Sora to Kairi, "I just didn't like being cooped up." When he received blank stares from his friends, he added, "Okay, maybe I hated it a little bit."

"Sure, Riku," Kairi said, a small grin on her face.

"So what are we going to do now?" Sora asked, as Riku stood there with his arms crossed, a pensive look on his face. This happened to him sometimes whenever they mentioned Destiny Islands, and Sora and Kairi had learned that they just had to leave Riku alone for a while and let the feeling pass.

"Well, we can ask around and see if we can find anything out," Kairi suggested.

"Or we could go in there," Riku said, startling Sora and Kairi. They'd expected him to be thinking for another two minutes. They turned to him and saw that he was pointing to a restaurant at the tip of the beach. It was large and partially wooden, being an extension of the pier before the main, paved road, and the main part of the restaurant was made of black bricks. There was a white sign up at the top of the building, and in curvy red letters it read: **The Black Terrace**. Sora, Riku, and Kairi stood there for a few moments, looking at the restaurant and putting together in their minds the pieces of the puzzle that they had.

"You don't think that's actually…" Riku started, but Sora interrupted him.

"That can't _possibly_ be Black Terrace," he said loudly, "If this is Black Terrace, then we've been wasting our time."

"Why don't we just go over and have a look at it?" Kairi asked, "Maybe it's just the name of the restaurant." They all agreed that this was a good idea and started walking over to the restaurant. Outside on the patio there were thin tables and chairs that were pitch black and made of metal. Instead of going in right away, the trio decided that it would be a good idea to sit down here first and talk things through.

"So we've found a restaurant named Black Terrace," Sora said, taking his seat, "And we're looking for Black Terrace. It kind of seems like we've found it."

"But Sora, we're not just looking for Black Terrace, remember?" Riku said, "We're looking for Cloud too, and I don't think he'd travel halfway across the galaxy for fine cuisine." Looking through the window to their left, it was clear that this restaurant's forte was _very_ fine cuisine. The finely dressed waiters carried platters of extremely overdressed foods, like salads with large assortments of dressing to go with them, and roast chicken showered in parsley. Even the soup was made to look good, served in silver bowls with gleaming silver spoons. The napkins were made of cloth, and beautiful centerpieces adorned each of the tables, which were covered by tablecloths.

"You know, I don't think Cloud would fit the standards for this place," Sora said, eyeing the way everyone was dressed. Every man in the restaurant was wearing a suit or a tuxedo, and every woman was wearing an expensive looking dress. "Could you imagine Cloud in a tux?" Each of them proceeded to do so, and each of them ended up close to tears from laughing so hard.

"I don't think Cloud's going to be here," Kairi said once they'd all quieted down.

"No, probably not," Sora said, "But the restaurant's still called Black Terrace."

"We should go in ask about it then," Riku said, standing, "One of the people in there _has_ to know why it's called that."

"Uh…Riku, we just got finished talking about how Cloud wouldn't make it in there." Sora couldn't help the small laugh that came. "How do you think _we're_ going to get in?"

"We're just going to ask them a question. They can't keep us from doing that, can they?"

"I guess not." Sora, Riku, and Kairi stood from the table they were sitting at and went up to the giant glass doors to peer inside. A few yards away from the door, there was a man behind a podium with a menu in his hand. "Let's ask him," Sora said, pointing to the man, "He looks like he would know about it." They pushed at the door, only to find that the door said PULL in big, bold letters across the side. Pushing the PULL door had made quite a commotion, so when they walked in they weren't surprised that a few people were looking at them.

"They're probably staring at the freaks that couldn't read PULL," Sora hissed, so that only Riku and Kairi could hear him.

"Just don't look at them," Riku hissed back, "We just have to ask one question and then we'll be out of here." The man that Sora had pointed to when they were outside came up to them.

"Good evening sirs, madam," he said, tipping his head in greeting, "Will you be dining with us this evening?"

Next to him, Riku felt Sora and Kairi turn their heads to look up at him. Inwardly he sighed. He was always the one they turned to to do the talking.

"No, we just came to ask a question about the name of this restaurant," Riku told the man.

"The Black Terrace?" the man said, nodding to show that he was following what Riku had said, "What do you want to know about it?"

"We want to know how it got it's name," Riku replied, "Specifically, where the "Black Terrace" part came from."

"Black Terrace…" the man said, his brows furrowing in thought, "I think it was an old legend, or a story." He paused to think some more. "The people on this island probably wouldn't know much about where it came from. We're the vacation-tourist island. If you want to know more about it though, you should find a way to get to the Alpha Island. It's the one that's got all of the libraries and scientists, the people with degrees."

"How can we get to the other island?" Riku asked, "We don't have a boat."

"Well, you could try to convince one of those boats out there to take you," the man said, motioning for one of the ships transporting goods. When the group in front of him gave disapproving looks, he added "Or you could take one of the ferryboats."

After thanking the man for his time, Sora, Riku, and Kairi left the restaurant and went back to the shoreline.

"Do you think we should take a ferry?" Sora asked.

"If we do it'll cost munny," Riku replied, "How much to we have?" Sora thought for a moment, trying to remember how much they'd had the last time he'd counted.

"I think we have about 15,000 munny," Sora said. Riku and Kairi stared at him in disbelief.

"Um, Sora, why do you have so much munny?" Riku asked.

"Fighting the heartless pays off," Sora replied as if it were obvious.

"Well, it'll be enough," Kairi said, pointing to a sign advertising the ferryboats, "One ticket is 2000 munny. That'll only be 6000 for each of us."

"And then we'll have 9000 left over," Sora said, calculating the difference in his mind.

"Okay. Now we only have to find a ferryboat that's taking passengers," Riku said. The trio walked down the shoreline to the ferryboats, looking to see which one would take them.

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The boat was bigger than Sora had thought it was going to be. It was almost the size of one of the biggest cruise ships he'd seen back on the Beta Island. As he leaned against the rail of the ship, watching the waves role by, he wondered if Black Terrace was actually on the island the ferryboat was heading for.

"The restaurant _did_ have the name," Sora thought, "So that must mean something." Getting tickets to go to the Alpha Island had been easy enough. It was like Kairi had said, and it had only cost 6000 munny. It hadn't been like Sora expected it to be though. He'd expected to get tickets to seats, but instead they'd gotten tickets to rooms, cabins in the ship.

Once the ship was off and moving, he, Riku, and Kairi had split up to explore the ship on their own. They had split the remaining 9000 munny, so now they each had 3000.

"I wonder if this ship has a gift shop," Sora thought, trying to find something to spend his munny on. He did an entire lap around the deck, but the only thing Sora could find was a wide doorway with the word **BAR** on top of it, and he wasn't old enough to drink. "Maybe there's something I can do downstairs," Sora thought. He was about to turn around and go find the stairs when he spotted something that really surprised him. A boy that couldn't have been a year older than him walked straight into the bar, and even started talking to the man behind the counter, but no one did anything to stop him. "What?" Sora said out loud. This couldn't have been right.

He looked around, spotted a woman reading a magazine with her back against the rail of the ship, and walked up to her.

"Excuse me," he said, tapping her arm.

"Yes?" she answered, peering down at him over the rim of her sunglasses.

"What's the age limit for drinking?" His voice was a little embarrassed, since he knew that every idiot probably knew the limit. Sora was surprised, however, by the woman's answer.

"Limit for drinking what?" she replied, looking at him curiously.

"Um…alcohol?"

The woman smiled at him, saying, "There is no age limit for alcohol. Are you new around here?"

"…Yeah. Yeah, I am." Sora looked back at the bar, and then back at the woman. "Well, thanks." He scurried off to stand right next to the bar's doorway, but wouldn't look in. What few morals he had regarding drinking just wouldn't let him. He stood there for a few seconds, pondering his options, and then a smile came to his face. He rounded the doorway, and went into the bar.

* * *

Riku looked down at the small key chain in his hand. It was the shape of a boat, and there was a button on the side that activated a light at the tip. He'd gotten it from the gift shop downstairs, mainly because it had only been 200 munny. Everything else had either been way too expensive, or more expensive than it should have been. 

"It may be cheap," Riku thought, "But at least it'll make a good souvenir." He pocketed the key chain and looked around. He had no trouble walking while he was on a boat. Growing up on an island, it had become like second nature. All around him people were stumbling every time the ship gave a lurch, and it gave Riku a sense of pride to be able to walk in a straight line. Growing up on an island had also spared Riku the ill fortune of getting sea sick, and a _lot_ of that was going on around him. There were people hanging over the side of the boats railing, people walking around with a dazed look in their eyes and a hand at their stomach, and in one case an actual pool of vomit, though Riku could have gone without that sight.

There were many things that Riku expected to happen while he was on the boat. He expected the occasional flurries of mist that the boat kicked up above the deck, and he expected the seagulls that liked to hitch rides on the railing, but there was one thing Riku didn't expect, and that was seeing Sora, hunched over the railing like he was about to be sick. Surprised, Riku crept over next to Sora and set his arms on the rail.

"Uh, Sora?" Riku called down to him.

"Yeah?" came Sora's response, his voice slightly higher than it normally was.

"You're not sea sick, are you?"

"No," Sora replied, gloomily, "I feel really…weird." That's when Riku spied something down at Sora's ankles. It was a glass, but it wasn't just any glass. It was a martini glass. "Sora," Riku said, his voice uneasy as he scooped the cup up, "Is this yours?"

Sora lifted his head above the rail and let out a small, "Uh-huh."

"And what was _in_ it?"

"I think it was…a raspberry martini."

"You didn't," Riku said, trying to sound angry, but instead sounding quite amused. He couldn't believe that Sora had actually had a _martini_.

"Yeah. I did."

"But Sora, you're only fifteen. How did you even get into the bar?"

"There are no limits, here," Sora said, his voice starting to sound drowsy.

"Limits on drinking?"

"Yeah."

"Sora," Riku sighed, "I think you should go back to your room." Sora looked like he was about to pass out at any second.

"My…room?" Sora asked as if he didn't know the meaning of the word, "But why?"

"You just…look like you need some rest," Riku said, noticing that Sora seemed to be swaying a little bit. Knowing that it would be a bad idea to let Sora go to his room on his own in his current state, Riku added, "What's your room number Sora. I'll come with you."

"My room number…" Sora repeated, "I think it's…426."

"Okay, let's go…"

"No wait," Sora shouted, "It's 624. Oh wait, no, it's…" Riku jammed his hand into Sora's pocket and pulled out a bright red piece of paper.

"Sora," Riku said, staring down at the number on the ticket, "Your room is 531."

"That was going to be my next guess."

"Come on Sora," Riku sighed, grabbing hold of Sora's wrist and tugging him forward. As he dragged Sora across the deck, Riku was positive that Sora should _not_ have had that martini. More than once he stumbled, and then people would stare, and by the time they were near the stairs Sora was leaning all over Riku and practically sleeping on him.

"Hey Riku. Hey Sora," came a voice from behind.

"Oh. Hi, Kairi," Riku said, turning to face Kairi. Sora mumbled a small greeting as well, but it was soft and garbled, and Riku was sure that Kairi hadn't heard it.

"Hey, what's wrong with Sora?" she asked, coming up next to Sora and putting a hand on his shoulder, "He's not sea sick, is he?"

"No, he…well…" Riku gave a nervous laugh. "He had a martini."

"A _raspberry_ martini," Sora corrected him.

"Yeah. He had one of those," Riku said, catering to Sora's mindset.

"No way," Kairi shouted, a huge grin on a face, "He had a martini?"

"Um, yes," Riku replied, starting his decent down the stairs. He'd expected Kairi to be angry, but she seemed to be having a good time with this.

"I can't believe Sora actually tried one," Kairi laughed, following behind Riku, "But I guess he couldn't help it. There are no limits on drinking here you know." Riku stopped in front of Kairi and turned to face her.

"How did you know that?" he asked, staring at her curiously.

"Oh, I just saw a kid going inside the bar and then asked a woman outside about it," Kairi said quickly. She got a thoughtful look on her face. "Come to think of it, she mentioned something about me being the second kid to come up to her and ask about drinking limits." The smile on Kairi's face got even bigger. "I bet the other one was Sora."

"Yeah, it probably was," Riku said, continuing to climb down the stairs. Once he got to the level where the cabins were, Riku looked at Sora's ticket again to make sure he was going to the right room. "Kairi, do you know where room 531 is?" Riku asked, "It's Sora's room."

Riku ignored Sora's small, "I thought it was 426."

"Oh yeah," Kairi said, pointing to the left, "It's right down there." She led Riku over to the door at the end of the hall with the 531 plastered on it. Riku slid the door open and gave Sora a small prod.

"Okay Sora, we're here," he said, moving Sora through the doorway, "Just try to get some sleep now, okay?"

"Yeah. Okay," Sora muttered, his voice even more groggy than it had been before. Riku and Kairi watched Sora stagger a few small steps before Riku slid the door shut. Kairi turned to Riku.

"So Sora's _drunk_ now?" she asked, the grin still on her face.

"No, Sora's not drunk," Riku said through his own smile, "The martini just wiped him…" A large clunk suddenly came from the other side of the door, and Riku and Kairi scrambled to open it back up again. Sora was sprawled out on the floor, unconscious. Kairi turned to Riku with an "I told you so" look on her face. "Okay," Riku said, "Maybe he is a _little_ drunk."

…**:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:…**

Riku sat in his room, which actually _had_ been 426, reading a book he'd found in one of the room's dresser drawers. It had been left by the last person to stay in the room, but Riku had been so bored that he'd actually started reading it. Sora's "martini episode" had been a few hours ago, and now he was in his room sleeping like a rock. Riku and Kairi had vowed never to let Sora forget about it.

"He's probably going to be a terrible drinker when he grows up," Riku thought, turning the page. Then he countered himself with, "Of course, he _is_ only fifteen." The same thing that had happened to Sora probably would have happened to Riku too if he'd had a martini. Riku closed the book in his hands and stared out the small window to his left. It was starting to get dark, and Riku could barely see anything through the clear glass. "I wonder how long it's going to take to get to the Alpha Island," he thought. It had never occurred to him to ask that question. Hopefully, Kairi or Sora had found out, because if the trip took too long Goofy and Donald probably weren't going to like that very much. "Oh well," he thought, "We're on the boat now."

Bringing his thoughts to an end, Riku looked back down at his book. It was brown and leather-bound, and in golden letters on the cover it read, "Theon No. 6: Condensed Books." Riku hadn't ever thought that some book he found in a drawer could be any good, but he was actually enjoying it. He opened the book back up and continued reading where he'd left off.

"_Do you ever wear your hair up?" he asked abruptly._

_Eleanor looked up, startled. It sounded creepy, like the kind of question an obscene caller would ask. "I thought it was my hair you wanted to draw," Eleanor said a bit sharply._

"_That was before you bent over so gracefully," George responded, with half his mind on the paper before him._

_It was the only kind of compliment Eleanor trusted. He wasn't even aware of what he'd said. He was concentrating on his drawing and the line of her neck. She bent down to her bag on the ground beside her, pulled out four of the fat tortoiseshell hairpins she bought at Caswell-Massey, and placed them on the table._

_George took one and held it up to the light. "These are _wonderful!_ Are they real tortoiseshell?"_

"_Probably not," Eleanor said, both her hands raised behind her as she twisted her hair. George hurriedly turned a page over and sketched the outline of her arms, thinking of Degas and Mary Cassatt. "Isn't real tortoiseshell illegal or cruel to endangered species or something?" Eleanor picked up another one and thrust it into the coil on the back of her head._

_"It amazes me the way woman can put their hair up without looking…_ **[Footnote at bottom**

Riku would have read more, but he was all of a sudden interrupted by a frantic rapping at his door. Riku set the book aside and rushed to the door, knowing that it was probably Kairi. When he opened the door, sure enough, Kairi was standing there, panting and out of breath.

"Kairi, what's wrong?" Riku asked, his voice surprised.

"Riku," Kairi breathed, her eyes full of worry, "Riku there are _nobodies_ in my room."

"Nobodies?" Riku repeated. Kairi nodded. "How? Did they just appear?"

"Yes, but Riku that's not the worst thing. I went to Sora's room to check and see if he was awake, but he wasn't there." Kairi sounded so anxious when she spoke that Riku was afraid she was going to burst into tears right on the spot. "What if something's happened to him?"

"Kairi, nothing's happened to him," Riku told her, trying to comfort her. He stepped out of his room. "Sora can take care of himself." As soon as he said it though, Riku started to have some doubts. It had only been a few hours since Sora had started sleeping, and it would definitely take more time than that for him to get over the alcohol. "Kairi, where's your room?" he asked, "Show me where the nobodies appeared."

"Okay," Kairi said, taking a deep breath, "Okay follow me." Kairi led Riku to her room, stopping briefly to show Riku Sora's empty one. "It's right over here," Kairi said, pointing ahead, "624." Kairi went up to her room's door, slowly opened it, and peered inside. "They're gone," she cried, her voice disbelieving. She opened the door the rest of the way and went inside. Riku followed her. "They were right over there," Kairi said, pointing next to her bed. She turned to Riku with a worried look in her eyes. "You do believe me, don't you?"

"Yes, yes of course I believe you," Riku reassured her, "They come and go all the time. They'll be back in no time." As if on cue, three dusks appeared in the center of the room. "See?" Riku said, summoning his Key Blade, "I told you." Kairi summoned her Key Blade as well, and together they quickly destroyed the nobodies. "Come on," Riku said, moving towards the door, "We should go check for more. We might find Sora that way."

"Yeah," Kairi answered, following after Riku. As they went down the hallways that led above deck, Riku and Kairi didn't find anymore nobodies, but once they finally made it onto the dimly lit deck they saw a strange sight, possibly the strangest they'd ever seen. All around men and woman were fighting, having a brawl practically, punching, kicking, and shoving each other to the ground. There were a few worried faces crouched bellow the railing and against the wall, watching in confusion as the people before them clashed.

"Riku," Kairi breathed, her voice lined with bewilderment, "What's happening?"

"I don't know," he replied, his voice as equally confused as hers, "It looks like…" Riku suddenly stopped. Through the mass of fighting people, he saw a small figure bellow the rail. "Kairi, it's Sora," he shouted, pointing to his friend. Sure enough, the thing Riku had pointed to was indeed Sora. He was sitting with his back against the wall bellow the railing and his knees pulled up to his chest. Riku and Kairi scrambled between people that looked like they were ready to dive at each other, rushing to get over to Sora before he was trampled by anyone. Once they made it over to him, they noticed that Sora seemed lost, like he didn't know where he was.

"Sora," Riku called, kneeling down next to Sora and giving him a shake, "Sora talk to me." Paired with the dazed look in Sora's eyes, Sora's lack of response was troubling, but he soon gave a reply.

"Riku," he whispered, "Kairi. I…I feel funny." He put a hand to his head. "I feel dizzy."

"That's just because you had a rough day today," Kairi said, giving his shoulder a small pat, "You should probably be in bed right now anyway."

"Kairi's right Sora," Riku said, tugging at Sora's arm to pull him up, "You shouldn't have come up here. Something weird is going."

"No," Sora cried, shaking his head, his voice suddenly loud as he wrenched his arm away from Riku. "No," he repeated. He burrowed his face into his knees and mumbled something.

"What?" Riku and Kairi said in unison, inching closer to Sora to try and hear whatever it was he'd said. Sora brought his head above his knees.

"I feel like I want to hurt you," he said quietly, "Both of you. I feel like I want to but I _don't_ want to." He brought his right hand up and pounded it against the wall next to him. It was so close to Kairi that she gave a yelp and jumped back. "I'm sorry," Sora whispered, shrinking back, his voice helpless and miserable, "I'm so sorry. I just don't know what's happening."

"Sora, it's time to go now," Riku said, his voice having a stern edge to it, "You're tired, and you don't know what you're doing." He moved his arms underneath Sora's and started trying to pull him up again. "Just come back with us and…"

"Get your hands _off _of me," Sora cried, slapping Riku's hands away.

"Sora what are you doing?" Kairi shouted, her voice surprised and anxious. Sora ignored Kairi though, shooting to his feet and advancing on Riku.

"You think you're better than me?" he growled, a look of hatred in his eyes that Riku hadn't thought Sora could muster, "You think you have power over me, don't you? You've thought that ever since we were little _kids_."

"No Sora. I…I don't," Riku said, surprised by his friend's harsh words, "You know I don't."

"Don't lie to me," Sora growled, "You know it's true." Sora just kept coming towards Riku, but all Riku could do was back away. He didn't want to have a confrontation with Sora. He didn't want to have to fight him, not again. That seemed likely to happen though, as Sora showed no signs of backing down.

"Riku," came Kairi's fearful cry, "_Stop_. Look _out_." Riku stopped just as he felt his back make contact with the rail behind him. He'd reached the end of the ship. He looked behind him to stare down at the rushing water bellow, and scenarios suddenly flashed through his mind of what could happen to him or to Sora if things continued going in the direction they were going. He turned back to Sora.

"What? Are you scared?" Sora jeered, crossing his arms at Riku, "Of me?"

Riku knew this couldn't have been Sora speaking. It wasn't even the alcohol. It was something more. The same thing that was wrong with everyone else on the deck, that was what was wrong with Sora. Something was going on here, and he needed to find out what it was.

"Sora," Riku said, his voice calm, "You need to relax. You're not yourself right now."

"What do you mean I'm 'not myself?' I'm…" Sora suddenly gave a gasp and brought a hand to his head. He started clutching the rail next to him.

"Sora?" Riku called out, taking a step forward, "Sora?" Sora didn't say anything though. He just stood there with his hand on the rail and a pained look on his face.

"Anything but that," he said, his voice soft, "_Anything_ but that…" He was trembling as he summoned the Key Blade.

"Sora," Riku said, his voice concerned, "What…" Riku didn't get to finish his sentence. With an angry cry Sora jumped up, his Key Blade held above his head. Riku barely had any time to summon Way To Dawn and block to attack. "Sora, _stop_ it," Riku cried, pushing Sora away. Sora didn't stop though. He came back at Riku, and Riku slid out of the way to avoid the onslaught.

"_Riku_," Kairi suddenly shrieked. Riku's head jerked up to her and he saw her toss her Key Blade towards him. At first he thought she'd gone crazy too, but when her Key Blade whizzed past him and he heard a cry behind him, he knew something else was going on. He turned around to see a man with a wooden plank in his hand. He didn't know where the wood had come from, but he knew the man was trying to hit him with it.

The disorientation from Kairi's attack soon wore off, and before long the man was swinging the wood again. As the wood came towards him Riku ducked, forgetting one thing. If he'd remembered this one thing, he would have gladly taken the hit himself, but he'd forgotten, and so he ducked.

The whole thing had happened so quickly, (Sora attacking him, Kairi screaming for him, the man swinging the piece of wood) that Riku had forgotten that Sora was behind him. When Riku ducked, the wood came cracking against Sora's head. Sora didn't scream. He didn't make a sound. He merely fell to the floor, and then he didn't move.

"No," Riku breathed, "No, Sora."

"_Sora_," Kairi screamed, rushing to Sora's side. Riku would have done the same but the man behind him still had the plank in his hand. Riku spun around and knocked the piece of wood out of the man's hand with Way To Dawn. He wanted so much to hurt this person. He had hurt Sora, and Riku wanted to hurt him just as much as he had hurt Sora, but he knew he couldn't. He'd already come to the conclusion that the man's actions were not his own, just as Sora's hadn't been. It wouldn't be right for Riku to hurt him, so instead he cast Dark Aura. It would stun the man, but he wouldn't be hurt.

As soon as the man was down Riku twisted around and fell to his knees next to Sora. Kairi already had him in her arms, shaking him and screaming.

"Sora," she cried, "Sora please wake up. _Sora_."

Riku laid a hand on Sora's arm and said, "Kairi, it's not as simple as…"

Kairi gave a gasping shriek and withdrew her hand from the side of Sora's head. Riku's eyes widened at what he saw. Kairi's hand was wet with redness, wet with blood. The man had hit Sora harder than Riku had thought. Riku and Kairi glanced at each other, and Riku saw that there were tears in Kairi's eyes.

"Riku, Sora…" she whimpered, "Sora…"

"No Kairi," Riku said, his voice firm, "Nothing's going to happen to him. Here, let me have him…" Riku slipped his arm underneath Sora and pulled him over, propping him up, being extremely wary of the wound on the side of his head that was slowly pouring out blood. Sora's breathing was rapid and frenzied, and Riku knew that that wound must've been bothering him, even in his sleep. He prayed that what he was about to do would work, because if it didn't, this wasn't going to end well. "**Cure**," he said softly, gripping Sora's arm and concentrating on Sora as hard he could. A green light that took the shape of leaves surrounded Sora, staying there for a second before fading away. "Is it gone, Kairi?" Riku asked, almost afraid of what Kairi's answer was going to be. Riku waited while Kairi felt along the side of Sora's head.

"Yes," Kairi said, the relief evident in her voice, "It's gone." Riku let out the breath he'd been holding.

"Kairi, we need to get out of…" Riku suddenly stopped. Both he and Kairi looked around. A second ago the deck had been noisy and loud with the fighting of the ship's passengers. Now though, all was quiet, and each and every one of the people that had just a moment ago been fighting, were staring at them. Through the happenings of the evening, Riku and Kairi had ended up on the part of the ship that was unoccupied, but now the mob of people before them started walking towards them, slowly but surely.

"Kairi, something's happening," Riku said, his voice uneasy as he slipped an arm underneath Sora's legs. He stood and looked to the left. There was no one on that part of the ship. The deck was long and clear, and towards the middle of the pathway there was a large doorway on the right. If he and Kairi could get to the doorway and into the room, they could hide there, and escape whatever craziness was going on around the ship. He was about to lean over to Kairi and tell her what he wanted to do, when the crowd in front of them broke into a run.

"Riku come on," Kairi shouted, running to the left and motioning for Riku to follow her. Apparently Kairi had been thinking the same thing as Riku, because she pointed to the doorway and said, "In there." As Riku ran towards the door, Kairi stood behind him, trying to prod him on when he slowed.

"Kairi," Riku finally panted, "I can't go that fast. Sora's heavier than he looks you know."

"But you have to _hurry_," Kairi urged, giving Riku another tug, "If we don't get in there soon they're going to know where we are."

Just when the heavy footsteps behind them seemed like they were going to round the corner, Riku and Kairi dived through the doorway.

"Kairi, we're in the _bar_?" Riku said, disbelief and sarcasm in his voice.

"Yeah," Kairi replied, "What's wrong with that?"

"Nothing," Riku said, shaking his head left and right. Kairi looked up at the counter.

"Hurry Riku, behind here," Kairi said, gesturing towards the counter. She was the first the scramble behind it, and then she turned back around to help Riku with Sora. Together they gently lowered him to the ground. As Riku leaned down bellow the top of the counter, there came a shriek from behind him. He and Kairi jumped and spun around to see a terrified-looking woman, crouching down and obviously hiding just as they were. At wasn't obvious to the woman, however, that they were all doing the same thing.

"Please don't hurt me," she wailed, "I didn't do anything. I promise I…"

"_Shh_," Riku and Kairi hissed.

"We're not gong to hurt…" Kairi started, but then she stopped and stared at the woman very intensely. "Hey, I know you," she said, "You were the one outside the bar that I asked about drinking limits." Her white shirt was smudged and her hair had fallen out of its bun, but even in the dim light Kairi could tell this was the same woman.

"I am?" the woman asked. She stared at Kairi for a few more seconds before her eyes lit up with recognition. "Oh yeah, I remember you, you and that other boy."

"You mean Sora?" Kairi said, pointing down at Sora's form. The woman peered down at Sora and nodded her head.

"Yeah, that's him," she said, "What happened to him?"

"It's a long story," Kairi replied.

"I hate to interrupt your conversation, but we kind of have a _situation_ here," Riku hissed.

"Sorry," Kairi whispered, having forgotten that they weren't out of trouble yet. The group stayed silent as running footsteps passed the doorway to the bar. It was a long while before the footsteps stopped, which let Riku and Kairi know that there must have been a lot of people following them.

"So," the woman said, once things had settled down, "Those people have been giving you trouble too?"

"Yes," Kairi sighed, "It's been a weird evening." She turned to Riku. "It's like everyone's out to get us."

"Including Sora," Riku replied, looking down at his friend, "What made him act that way?"

"He's been acting weird ever since he had that martini," Kairi said, a small smile on her face.

"Martini?" the woman behind them spoke up. Riku and Kairi turned around to see a surprised look in the woman's eyes.

"Um, yes," Riku said, "It was a raspberry martini." Riku knew that Sora probably would have wanted him to add that last part.

"If he's had a martini then it's no wonder he's been acting strangely," the woman said. She pointed above the counter. "A lot of the people out there have all had martinis."

"How do you know _that_?" Riku asked.

"I know because I'm one of the bar tenders on this ship," the woman replied, "I never forget a customer's face."

"You're a bar tender?" Kairi asked, her voice surprised, "Then how come you were outside when I asked you about the drinking limits?"

"All of the bar tenders don't work at the same time," the woman replied, "I was on break, but that's not the point. All of the people who drank martinis are acting strangely, so I think there must be…well…something wrong with the martinis."

"You're the bar tender though," Riku said, "Aren't you the one that makes the martinis?"

"Yeah, but I didn't do anything to them," the woman said quickly, "I wouldn't, and I'm sure none of the others would either. "

"It's not that I think you did anything to them," Riku reassured her. Something about the woman seemed genuine to Riku, and for some reason he actually trusted her. "It's actually the opposite of that. You were watching the martinis. You would've noticed if anything happened to them, right?"

"Well, yeah, that was the problem with my theory," the woman admitted, "I was the one that made most of the martinis today, and the whole thing went smoothly. I even had a martini myself, olive and all."

"You ate the olive?" Kairi asked, her voice questioning.

"Yeah," the woman replied.

"Oh." Kairi's voice was suddenly excited. "Me too. I ate my olive too."

"The olive in the martini?"

"_Yes_. Yes. I didn't think anyone else liked…"

"Kairi," Riku interrupted, his voice a little uneasy, "What are you talking about?"

"Oh," Kairi gasped. She turned to Riku with a guilty look on her face.

"Kairi, is there something you haven't told me?"

"Well…" Kairi said, her voice trailing off a little. She didn't answer for a few seconds as if she was trying to think of something to tell Riku. "I…kind of had a little martini."

"Wait a minute, _you_ had a martini too?" Riku cried. Kairi gave a small nod. After a few seconds of thinking, Riku said, "You didn't end up like Sora."

"Of course I didn't end up like Sora," Kairi said, her voice straightforward, "I only had a sip of it. The stuff was disgusting."

"I didn't mean that you didn't end up _drunk_ like Sora," Riku said, a small grin on his face, "I meant that you didn't end up…well…" Riku pointed above the counter. "You didn't end up like those people."

"Hm, he was like those people, wasn't he?" Kairi said quietly. She let her gaze fall on Sora. "You know Riku, when I think about it, what else could Sora have done that made him that way _other_ than drinking that martini?"

"Kairi, we already figured out that it wasn't the martinis," Riku said, "How _could_ it have bee…"

"_Oh_." The woman behind them suddenly made another outburst, bringing Riku and Kairi's attention back over to her. "This morning something happened," she said, her pace quick, "There was a man in the kitchen." She put a hand to her head like she was trying to remember everything that had happened. "He looked really nervous when I found him. He wanted to know where he could find a job on the ship, and I told him that the captain would be able to tell him more. He said okay and…then he left." There was a few seconds of silence. As if trying to break the awkwardness of it, the woman said, "He said his name was Demie…Dem…Dem-something."

Both Riku and Kairi's eyes widened in surprise.

"Was his name Demeatrix?" Kairi asked, her voice insistent.

"No, it was shorter."

"Demyx," Riku suddenly said, "It was Demyx, wasn't it?"

"Yeah. How did you know?"

Riku and Kairi looked at each other, each of them knowing that the other was thinking the same thing. Neither of them had ever seen Demyx, but they'd heard about him from Sora. The only thing they knew about him was the fact that he had been number IX in Organization XIII, and that Sora had defeated him. He couldn't have been here now though. It just wasn't possible.

"Hey?" the woman called, "Are you guys still with me?"

"I…think you may have been right about the martinis," Riku said, looking up at the woman.

"I was?" the woman asked, surprised.

"I'm starting to get what's happening here," Riku said, "Just give me a couple of seconds." He put a hand to his head, gathering his thoughts before addressing the woman. "The man you saw in the kitchen probably wasn't named Demyx. Forget about that. He was probably a person we know named Demeatrix."

"Oh. So who is he?" the woman asked.

"We're not really sure," Riku replied, "But he's not a good person. The fact that he was in the kitchen is bad." Riku paused to find a way to say what wanted to without giving too much away. "He…may have done something to the food in the kitchen, more specifically the martinis."

"If Demeatrix did something to the martinis, how are we going to undo it?" Kairi asked, "Sora can't stay this way forever."

"Well, you and…um…" He turned to the woman. "What's your name?"

"Hana," the woman told him.

"Okay, you two both had martinis, right?"

"Yes," Kairi and Hana replied.

"Nothing happened to you though. You're both normal."

"So that must mean that it's _not_ the martinis that are making everyone go crazy," Hana said.

"No, it could still be them. I'm positive that the only thing Sora's had all day today has been that martini, and then after he had it he started acting funny…other than the fact that he passed out from being drunk," he added at Kairi's small giggle. "I think nothing happened to Sora because of the fact that he didn't eat the olive."

"Wait a minute, you think that we're 'immune' to the martini because of the fact that we ate the olives?" Kairi asked.

"I think that might be what it is," Riku replied, "We'd have to look into it more."

"And how are we going to do that?"

"We'd have to leave here, look for…things that might lead us to Demeatrix." The look in Kairi's eye let Riku know that she knew he was talking about nobodies. "We'd have to leave Sora here." He turned to Hana, who seemed very confused by what they were talking about. "Hana," he said, "Will you be staying here?"

"Of course I'll be staying here," Hana said loudly, "I'm definitely not going out there to face those people."

"Will you look after Sora then?" Riku asked, aware of the fact that Kairi was staring at him. He didn't normally trust strangers like this, but there really wasn't any other choice at the moment. "We can't bring him with us and we really have to go."

"Do you really want to go out there?" Hana asked, her voice a little skeptical, "Isn't it a little too dangerous?"

"Don't worry. We just need to find out for sure if the martinis are what's making all of this happen."

"Well, if you're sure," Hana said. She turned to look at Sora. "I'll be here, and I'll make sure nothing happens to him."

"Thank you," Riku breathed, the relief evident in his voice. It would be a lot easier this way. "Kairi?" he said, looking at her.

"Time to go?" Kairi asked, a small smile on her face.

"Yeah," Riku replied, returning her smile, "It is."

They each stood, and climbed over the counter.

**To Be Continued…**

Excerpt from The Wrong House By Carol McD. Wallace, if anyone's interested.

I don't know if this ending would be considered a cliff hanger, but if it is I'm sorry! You don't need to worry though. I'll update soon. I'm finally getting over this story drought! This is The Mangosity saying, things may come, and things may go, but Anime is forever!

* * *


	6. VI Sea Sick Cont'd

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Kingdom Hearts.

* * *

Black Terrace

_VI._** Sea Sick (Cont'd)**

* * *

_I just wish we knew what they were up to. –Kairi_

* * *

"So what are we looking for?" Kairi asked, running alongside Riku.

"Nobodies," Riku replied. "It couldn't have been a coincidence that they showed up in your room right when all of this started happening. They're definitely at the bottom of…" At the corner Riku suddenly stopped, and held his arm in front of Kairi to stop her. He pressed them both against the wall and peered around the corner.

"Demeatrix," Kairi whispered. "_He's_ behind this?"

"I guess so," Riku replied.

Demeatrix stood in the middle of the deck, illuminated by a beam of moonlight. He crossed his arms, staring down at a hooded figure.

"So, you did everything right," he said, his voice sarcastic. "I'm impressed."

"Of course I did," the hooded figure replied. "I'm not an idiot."

"Right," Demeatrix laughed, his voice still very sarcastic. "Which food did you put it in?"

"It was a drink, actually. I put it in the martini mixture."

"And where did you put the Light?"

"In the olives."

There was a pause.

"You put the Light in the olives?" Demeatrix asked. The hooded figure nodded, and Demeatrix sighed, shaking his head. "I knew it was too good to be true."

"What?"

"You really are an idiot, you know."

"H…Hey, what did I do?"

"_Why_ did you put the Light in the olives?" Demeatrix asked, uncrossing his arms.

"I was about to get _thrown out_ of the kitchen," the hooded figure replied. "I didn't have time to put it anywhere else, and the olives were the closest…"

"They serve olives along with the martinis," Demeatrix interrupted. "The Darkness will have no effect on anyone who eats an olive."

"Well, that doesn't really matter. There aren't very many people who eat the olive."

"You really can't do anything right…"

"Kairi, you heard that, right?" Riku asked, turning to Kairi.

"It explains a lot," Kairi replied. "It's because of the martinis that everyone is acting so strangely."

"And it's because you ate that olive that nothing happened to you." Riku stopped to think. "I just wish we knew what exactly it was that they did."

"Well, at least we know that it was them who did something," Kairi said. "Maybe if we make Sora eat an olive he can help us figure everything out."

"Maybe. Let's…"

"And what do we have here?"

They each gasped and looked up to find Demeatrix smirking down at them.

"You two are really easy to sneak up on, you know."

They jumped back, and Riku grabbed Kairi by the wrist.

"Get back to Sora and try to get him to eat an olive," he whispered. "I'll take care of this."

"Are you sure?" Kairi asked, sounding worried.

The hooded figure came up next to Demeatrix, and Riku summoned his Key Blade.

"Yes. Just _go_."

Kairi nodded, and dashed away.

"You actually think you can take us on?" Demeatrix asked. "I bet you couldn't even beat this guy." He pointed a thumb at the hooded figure, who crossed his arms.

"I _can_ hear, you know."

"Hey, it was a complement."

"You're making it sound like I'm a weakling."

"Well, you kind of are."

"I am _not_ a…"

"Can we just get on with this?" Riku shouted. "Why are you even here?"

"Oh, you know. Just stirring up a little trouble," Demeatrix replied. "I didn't think we'd meet any of you key bearers here though." His weapon appeared in his grasp. "It must be our lucky day."

It seemed like he would rush forward and attack, and Riku braced himself, but Demeatrix suddenly stopped, and turned to the hooded figure.

"Why don't I let you handle this alone?" he asked, turning to the hooded figure.

"Wh…what?" the figure stammered.

"If you aren't a weakling, then you should be able to take this guy out in no time." He turned to Riku and made a kind of salute. "See ya." He disappeared in a portal of darkness, leaving Riku and the hooded figure alone.

"Hey, come back," the hooded figure cried. When no one answered him, he sighed.

"Are we going to fight are what?" Riku shouted, growing annoyed.

The hooded figure snapped his head over to Riku, and then lifted his arm into the air. An orb of water appeared above his hand, and morphed into a solid form.

"It's…an instrument?" Riku thought, as the figure pulled the object into his arms. Riku was right, but it wasn't just any instrument. It was a sitar.

**

* * *

**

Kairi rushed into the bar, looked around to make sure that no one had come in while she was gone, and then hopped over the counter.

"It's just me," she said quickly, when Hana started.

"Oh," Hana sighed, laying a hand on her chest.

"I need to know where you keep the olives," Kairi said.

"The olives?" Hana asked, obviously confused. Kairi nodded. "Um, they're in the kitchen. You can't miss them." She pointed a door to the far left. "Why do you need the olives?"

"I'll explain later," Kairi replied, rushing to the kitchen door. The olives were in a large, plastic container next to the sink, and so Kairi grabbed one and came back out. She kneeled next to Sora and laid a hand on his face.

"Sora," she called. "Sora, wake up." He stirred softly for a moment, and then slowly opened his eyes.

"Kairi?" he whispered. He brought his hands to his forehead. "I…I don't feel right."

"Just eat this," Kairi said, bringing the olive to his mouth. "It'll make you feel better." Sora nibbled at the side of the olive, and then made a face. "What's wrong?"

"What is this?" he asked. "It's so…bitter." Kairi took a small bite of the olive herself, and shook her head.

"It doesn't taste bitter to me," she said.

Sora suddenly clamped his eyes closed, and gripped his chest. Before Kairi could say anything, Sora took a deep breath, and gave a large sigh.

"The feeling's gone," he whispered. "I don't feel so terrible anymore." He attempted to sit up, but Kairi laid her hands on his shoulders.

"Why don't you just lie down?" she said. "You should rest."

"Oh. Okay." Sora lay back down, and Kairi turned to Hana.

"Okay, you know how everyone out there who's acting strangely has had a martini?" she asked.

"Yeah" Hana replied.

"Well, I'm sure now that the martinis are what's making them act like that." She stood. "And olives are the only way to change them back to normal."

"How can that be though?"

"I don't really know," Kairi admitted. "But I'm going to find out." She laid her hands on the countertop. "I'll be back," she said, and then hopped over the counter to make it back to where Riku was.

At the moment, Riku was having a hard time fighting the hooded figure. He began to wonder if Demeatrix had simply called the hooded figure weak to lower his guard. They stood at opposite ends of the deck, breathing heavily and eyeing one another.

"This guy's definitely not a weakling," Riku thought. Although this person's fighting style was a bit sloppy, it still got the job done. "Hey," he called out. "Why are you and Demeatrix here anyway?"

"I'm not going to say," the hooded figure replied. He drew an arm into the air, and columns of water shot up from the deck. Riku rolled to the side to avoid them, realizing too late that this was a distraction. A blast of water suddenly slammed into him from behind, knocking him to the ground. He tried to get up, but another blast came from bellow. This one slammed him against the wall.

Until this point he and the hooded figure had had a stalemate. It seemed now that the odds had turned against Riku. The hooded figure attempted to push his sitar-like weapon against Riku's chest, but Riku held his arms up to hold it back. He looked at his hand that held his Key Blade.

"If I could just move my arm up a little bit more," he thought, but the hooded figure seemed to know what Riku wanted to do, and pushed this arm further down. They struggled like this for a few moments before the hooded figure finally pushed Riku to the ground. He lifted up the sitar, as if he would slam it down against Riku, and Riku quickly brought his Key Blade up to block. Suddenly, as if he had lost the will to fight, the hooded figure brought his weapon down, and sighed.

"Look," he said. "I don't really want to do this."

"What do you…" Riku began.

"Just go get your friends and go hide somewhere," the hooded figure interrupted. "Everyone should be back to normal by morning."

Riku started to respond, but then he heard Kairi's voice behind him.

"Riku," she shouted. He heard her running toward him, and before he knew it, the hooded figure had disappeared.

"Riku, what happened?" Kairi asked, rushing to his side. "Are you all right?"

"…Yeah," Riku replied. He stood. "Is Sora all right?"

"Yes," Kairi replied, nodding. "I gave him an olive, and he said he felt better after eating it." She sighed. "How are we going to get every single person to eat an olive?"

"Well, why don't we just go back to our room?" Riku suggested. "Maybe we'll be able to figure out something to do in the morning."

Instead of automatically rejecting the idea, Kairi seemed to consider it.

"Maybe we _will_ have more options during the day," Kairi admitted. "And it's getting pretty late anyway."

"Yeah," Riku agreed. "I'm sure we'll be able to figure something out tomorrow."

They started back for the bar, Riku praying that the hooded figure had not simply wanted to mislead him.

Indeed, he had not. Riku and Kairi went back to the bar to grab Sora, offering to let Hana come with them, of course. In the morning, everyone had returned to their normal selves. None of them remembered what had happened the previous night, including Sora. Riku and Kairi thought that it was best this way though, and they did not fill him in.

They arrived at the Alpha Island at the end of the day, and found that Black Terrace was not there. No one seemed to know anything about it, either. The end of the day found them back on the ferry, and they luckily had an uneventful ride. Once they got to the Beta Island, they went straight to the Gummi Teleportation Site.

Surprisingly, they found Donald and Goofy waiting for them in the Gummi ship. They would find out later that the pair had successfully solved the problem at Disney Castle, and that they had arrived at the Gummi Ship a few hours ago, but no one asked then about that now. At the moment they appeared uneasy and worried.

"Hey, what's wrong?" Sora asked.

"One of the four Black Terrace islands," Goofy replied. "It's…it's been destroyed."

"What?" the trio gasped.

"How?" Kairi asked.

"We don't know," Donald replied. "All we do know is that when we checked the world's coordinates, the map showed that nothing was there."

"Are you sure it's not just broken?" Riku asked.

"It's not broken," Donald said. "The computer records still show that the world was there yesterday, and now it's not."

"Well, it could still be there now," Sora said hopefully. "Maybe there's just something keeping the computer from detecting it."

"There's no doubt that it's been destroyed, Sora," Donald replied, shaking his head. "There's nothing that can keep a world from being detected, unless something destroys it."

There was a long moment of silence.

"Which world was it?" Riku asked.

"Lumarium," Goofy replied.

"Then which world do we have left?"

"Callgeera," Sora answered him, surprising everyone. "We're going to Callgeera."

**To Be Continued…**

Well, I'm glad I finally got a chance to put this up! It's really been a long time though… That's the longest I've ever taken to put up a chapter for any story… wow…


	7. VII Pitch Darkness

These are the last two chapters of Black Terrace. I hope you enjoy!

* * *

Black Terrace

_VII._ **Pitch Darkness**

* * *

_I can't believe actually found him here… Now the problem is getting him to come with us. –Sora_

* * *

The world Callgeera was covered in darkness. It blanketed the surface of everything they saw, smothering out any form of light that might have been there otherwise. Darkness swirled around them. They could hardly see the dark, ominous fortress stationed some ways in front of them. It loomed over them, casting no shadow, but emanating darkness all the while. They saw no other buildings but the one before them.

"This place is so… menacing," Sora said, looking around at the desolate landscape.

"It's because of the darkness," Riku replied. He pointed up at the fortress. "And it looks like it's coming from that building."

"Then that's probably a good place to start looking," Donald said.

"Would Cloud really be in a place like this?" Kairi asked.

"We won't know until we look," Goofy replied.

"And if we don't find him here, we'll have to start all over again," Sora sighed. No one said anything to this.

"Well, come on. Let's just go," Riku finally said. "The sooner we search the place, the sooner we'll know whether he's here or not."

They cautiously made their way over to the front of the fortress, and found a large, door-less entrance. It was shrouded with darkness, so they could not see what lay on the other side. They stopped there for a moment before Sora gave a small signal to proceed.

"The darkness feels so powerful here," Riku said, as they entered the threshold. "It's like…" Riku's words were cut short here.

Sora looked to the left and found that Riku had disappeared. He looked all around and found that _all_ of his friends had disappeared.

"Guys?" he called, hoping that it had just grown too dark to see. None of them answered though. He did not know what had happened, but continued to move through the darkness.

Sora emerged from the dark haze to find himself in a well lit room made of stone. Except for a few flaming torches and a large door at the end of the hall, the room was bare. His friends were still nowhere to be found.

"What could have happened to the others?" Sora thought. "I hope they're all right."

Finding no other way to leave the room, he slowly approached the door in front of him. It was tall and wide, and as he got closer to it, Sora realized that it had no doorknob or keyhole, or anything else that could be used to open it. Once he saw this, Sora almost turned around to go back the way he had come, when the Key Blade appeared in his hand.

"Wha…?" Sora gasped, surprised. The Key Blade pointed toward the door and a thin beam of light shot from its tip. The light fell on the door, and the door faded away to reveal a flight of stairs. The stairway was so dimly lit that Sora could not see to the bottom of it.

"It probably isn't a good idea to go down there," Sora thought. He looked behind him and saw that the way he had come was covered in stone. He sighed. "But I guess I have no choice."

He placed his foot onto the first step. It seemed strong enough, so he cautiously proceeded. At the end of the stairway he found another door with no knob, so he used the Key Blade to open this one as well.

He stepped through the doorway once it was clear and found himself in a room that looked exactly like the one he had started in.

"W…What?"

He looked to the left and to the right, but could find nothing to tell this room apart from the last.

"The rooms here must be very similar," Sora decided, taking a step forward. He used the Key Blade to open the door at the head of the room, opened the door at the end of the stairway, and found himself in yet another room that resembled the last.

"Wait…"

Sora slowly looked around to find that there was nothing behind him but a stone wall.

"…am I going around in circles?"

He summoned the Key Blade and used it to make a mark on the wall. He then proceeded to go through the door at the head of the room and then the one at the end of the stairway. When he came to room beyond the doors, he looked to the spot where he had made the mark on the wall, and it was still there. This room not only looked like the room he first started in. It _was_ the room he first started in.

"This castle is…strange," Sora thought. "How do I get out of here?"

Suddenly, out of nowhere, something crashed through the wall behind Sora. He jumped back and spun around to see what had happened. He saw the shadow of a figure through the haze of rubble, and as the dust cleared away, he realized with dread that it was Sephiroth. As Sephiroth came forward, Sora noiselessly pressed his back against the wall, and waited

"He doesn't see that I'm here," Sora thought, holding his breath as Sephiroth came past him. He looked back at the gaping hole that Sephiroth had made coming into the room. "I can probably get through there if I'm quiet enough." He softly began to inch toward the exit, when Sephiroth's voice suddenly rang out through the hall.

"I can see you back there…"

For a split second Sora thought that Sephiroth had seen him, but then the end of Sephiroth's sentence caught him by surprise.

"…Cloud."

As Sephiroth said his name, Cloud came speeding through the hole in the wall, and stopped in the middle of the room. Neither he nor Sephiroth spoke a word to each other, and before Sora knew it the two had locked swords.

Without a thought, Sora quickly made his way through the exit to keep out of sight.

"Okay, I've found Cloud," he thought. "Now what?"

He peeped around the corner to see what was happening with Cloud and Sephiroth, and saw that they were pretty evenly matched. Neither could get a hit in, and they kept just clashing swords. They suddenly jumped away from each other, and landed at opposite ends of the hall.

"You can't stop me from finding it," Cloud shouted. "I'll get to it no matter what."

"And then what?" Sephiroth asked. He lowered his guard. "Do you honestly think it will be that easy to rid yourself of darkness?" There was a long pause. "Darkness is a part of you, Cloud. You should think that through."

Sephiroth stepped back, and disappeared in a flood of darkness. Cloud lowered his sword, and Sora looked away to think.

"Now, what to say?" he thought. He knew that he would have to confront Cloud right now, or else he would end up losing track of him. "I guess I could…"

"Sora, what are you doing here?" Cloud's voice suddenly came from beside him. Sora started and turned to face him. Somehow Cloud had come up next to him without him noticing.

"Um…Aerith and Leon and the others were really worried about you," Sora replied quickly. "They asked us to come and look for you."

"Who else is here with you?"

"Just Donald and Goofy. And my friends, Riku and Kairi."

Cloud was silent for a long moment.

"I never wanted anyone to come looking for me," he finally said.

"Well…why did you come here in the first place? Did it have anything to do with Black Terrace?"

"What do you know about that?" Cloud asked, a slight glare on his face.

"Nothing, really," Sora replied, ignoring the glare and the rude tone of Cloud's voice. "We just thought that if we tracked down Black Terrace, we would find you too."

"Well, you've found me. Now leave."

"Wait, what?"

"I'm not leaving until I find what I came for."

"And what's that?"

"You don't need to know," Cloud replied curtly. "Now just go find your friends and get out of…"

"No way," Sora interrupted him. "We've been looking _everywhere_ for you, and it took us forever to get this far."

"Sora…"

"We're not leaving unless you come with us. And besides," Sora added. "I couldn't leave even if I wanted to. I wouldn't be able to find the exit."

"You'll find the way out if you just go this way and keep going," Cloud said, pointing to the passage behind Sora.

"Really?" Sora asked, turning to look where Cloud was pointing. "How do you…?"

Sora suddenly felt a sharp pain in the back of his head, and the world went black.

**To Be Continued…**


	8. VIII Pitch Darkness Cont'd

Black Terrace

_VIII._ **Pitch Darkness (Cont'd)**

* * *

_If he had just told someone why he wanted to come to this place, this whole situation could have been avoided. I'm sure someone would have been able to talk him out of it. –Sora _

* * *

"The darkness feels so powerful here," Riku said, as they entered the threshold. "It's like this whole place is made of it." It did not surprise him that no one answered his comment. It really wasn't the kind of comment that needed answering. It did surprise him, however, when he finally came into some light and found that his friends were no longer there beside him.

"Hey, where am I?"

A long, ominous hallway stretched before him. It was dark and menacing, and Riku had no idea how he had wound up there. Seeing that there was only one way to go, Riku carefully began to make his way down the hallway. When he got to the end of the hallway, there was only one way to turn, left, so he did. At the end of this hallway he could only turn right. As it turned out, the whole connection of hallways was just one big maze, and Riku could find no way out.

After a long while of navigating the various hallways, Riku finally found a point where there were two paths to chose from. He could either go left or right. He almost chose the left path when a large crash sounded from his right.

"The others might be over there," Riku thought, rushing down the path where the noise had come from. Even if his friends were not down this path, Riku knew that this was his best chance at getting out of the maze. He hurried down the hallway, the passages twisting and turning as he went, and just when he thought that this path really was a bad choice, he came to an open space that was not just a hallway. It was a large room.

Half the front wall of the room was a large window that looked down onto the room below. To his left Riku saw a flight of stairs that he guessed must have led down to the lower floor. As he passed the window at the head of the room, he spied something in the lower room out of the corner of his eye. He could have sworn it was Sora. When he looked closer he realized that it _was_ Sora. He lay on his side at the head of the room, unmoving.

"Hey, Sora," Riku called, rushing down the flight of stairs to his left. He kneeled down next to Sora and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Sora. Sora, wake up."

Sora stirred for a moment before opening his eyes, a confused expression coming over his face.

"Riku...?" he murmured.

"Sora, what…"

"Oh, Cloud," Sora shouted, sitting up suddenly. "Riku, I found him. He was here just a while ago."

"Are you sure?" Riku asked, sounding skeptical.

"Of course I am."

"Then do you know where he went?"

"No," Sora sighed. "I think he might have hit me in the head before he left. He really didn't want to answer any questions."

Sora stood.

"So have you found any of the others?" he asked.

"No," Riku replied. "I don't even know how we got separated in the first place."

"It was something about coming into this place…" Sora began, but then he stopped.

"What?"

"Listen," Sora said. "I think I hear Kairi. And Donald and Goofy too."

Riku listened, and found that he heard them too.

"I think it's coming from that way," Sora said, pointing.

They followed the sounds of the voices, and when they turned the corner at the end of the hall, they found Kairi, Donald, and Goofy locked in combat with Demeatrix's younger brother, Demyx. And they seemed to be winning. In fact, they had almost beaten him. They had him cornered, darkness pouring from him. He stumbled back, his sitar falling to the ground and turning to water.

"Now tell us where he is," Donald shouted.

As he began to disappear, he looked angry at first, but then he shook his head, and sighed.

"Go up those stairs behind me," he told them. "You'll find my brother somewhere at the top."

He vanished, and Sora called out, "Hey, are you guys all right?"

Surprised, Kairi, Donald, and Goofy turned around to see Sora and Riku coming toward them.

"Hey, we've been looking for you two," Kairi called, sounding relived.

"How did you guys end up fighting him?" Riku asked.

"When we found each other, we tried to find you two," Goofy explained. "We ended up finding Demeatrix and Demyx instead."

"Demeatrix went on ahead, and told Demyx to take care of us," Donald said. "We were trying to get him to tell us where Demeatrix had gone, and…well…you heard what he said."

They all looked at the back of the room to see the stairs that Demyx had talked about.

"Can we trust that he was telling the truth?" Kairi asked.

"Maybe not," Sora replied. "But we should still check up there so that we at least know what's there."

They all agreed to this, and started up the stairway. It went on and on with no end in sight, until finally they saw a bright light up ahead of them. It was a doorway.

They filed through and found themselves in a clear white room. It was long and wide, and at the head of the room there were two large, polished black doors that formed one doorway. Without being told, they all knew that these doors where the gateway to Black Terrace. In front of the doors stood two figures. One was Demeatrix, standing right next to the doors, and the other in front of him was Cloud, looking angry and ready to fight.

"Get away from there," Cloud growled, his sword held at the ready.

Demeatrix simply gave a cruel laugh.

"You came here hoping to cleanse yourself of the darkness, didn't you?" he asked, placing his hands on the door's glass knobs. "Go ahead and _try_." He swung the doors open, and a flood of darkness came pouring forth. It quickly filled the room, smoking out everything that everyone saw.

"Is everyone still there?" Sora called. He was relieved to hear his friend's acknowledgements. "Now where's Deme…"

They were suddenly knocked off of their feet from behind by some great force. When they looked around, they saw Demeatrix.

"And that fool Cloud thought that this place was light," he said, his voice mocking. "Whatever could have given him that idea?" He raised his hand into the air. "I guess it really doesn't matter now."

He brought his hand down, and the same force from before knocked them back even further.

"I've got all the power. Now _nothing_ can stop me."

He raised his hand again, but before he could do anything, a figure appeared in front of him. It was Cloud. He swung his sword to swat Demeatrix away and then turned to Sora and his friends.

"I'll hold him off," Cloud said. "You guys figure out how to get Black Terrace closed."

Before any of them could say anything, he ran off.

"Okay…what's the plan?" Sora asked, looking around at his friends.

"We're going to have to find a way to get you close enough to Black Terrace to close it," Riku said.

"What? Why me?"

"Your Key Blade _is_ the strongest, Sora," Goofy pointed out.

"If any of us has a chance at closing Black Terrace, it's you," Kairi agreed.

"I guess you're right," Sora replied. He looked around. "We're going to have to find it though. I don't see it anywhere."

"That way," Riku said, pointing. "The darkness feels strongest that way. It's got to be somewhere over there."

"Okay, then come on, we'll…"

They suddenly heard a thud from beside them, and saw that Demeatrix had knocked Cloud to the ground.

"You thought you could defeat me so easily?" Demeatrix chided. "Not with all of this power I have."

Before he could do anything more, Cloud jumped up and pushed him back with his sword. He turned to Sora and his friends.

"Go," he shouted. "_Quickly_."

"Come on," Sora called, leading his friends to where Riku had pointed. They followed him, and though it was hard to see, they soon came to the doors that led into Black Terrace.

"Sora, you stay here," Donald said. "We'll go close the doors so that you can lock them."

"Okay," Sora replied. As his friends ran off to close the doors, he turned to see how Cloud was doing at fending off Demeatrix. He seemed to be doing well enough, keeping Demeatrix far away enough so that he would not be able to interfere with them. When he turned back to his friends, he saw that they had made it to the doors. They were shoving at them, struggling to close them against the steady stream of darkness that was pouring from them, but they had almost done it. The doors were almost closed.

"It will _not_ end this way," Demeatrix yelled unexpectedly. Sora felt a force shove him from behind, and he fell to the ground. The force was enough to reach his friends, and it shoved them against the doors.

Before Sora could turn to face Demeatrix, he heard one of his friends shout, "Sora, the doors are closed. Lock them _now_."

Wasting no time, Sora held his Key Blade up, and a beam of light streamed from its tip and onto the two doors. All the darkness swirling around in the room suddenly came to a stop, and began flowing back toward the doors. Sora heard a scream from Demeatrix, and he knew that this had defeated him. The room slowly began to clear up, and soon all of the darkness had left it. Everyone in the room turned to the spot where Demeatrix stood to see what had become of him.

He sat on his knees, darkness pouring from underneath him. He was fading. He looked around at everyone in the room, and, bitterly, he uttered, "You win." He faded away, and that was the last any of them ever saw of him.

**

* * *

**

"So you came here because you thought that Black Terrace would help you get away from darkness?" Sora asked.

"Yeah," Cloud replied. "I thought that Black Terrace's power was light, but I was wrong."

"Everyone back at Radiant Garden is really wondering where you are," Donald said. "Why didn't you tell them where you were going?"

"They would have tried to stop me, and it would have made things more complicated." Cloud turned to look at the fortress where Black Terrace was. "I shouldn't have come here though. This place didn't help me at all."

"Well, at least now you _know_ it won't help," Sora said. "And besides, you don't need to look for anything to help you get rid of the darkness. All you need is yourself, and maybe a little help from your friends.

"It's true," Riku agreed, nodding.

Cloud didn't say anything to this for a long while.

"Come on Cloud," Sora finally said. "Let's go home."

Cloud stared out at Black Terrace's fortress for a small moment more, before sighing, and turning around to face all of them.

"Yeah," he replied. "Let's go."

**The End**


End file.
